Quantum Lily
by Buddhacide
Summary: This is an AU of Lillian Academy set in the distant year of 2400 AD. Its crowning feat is a futuristic android, maintained by the Red Rose who is also an expert in robotic science, Youko. Join the sassy Gigantea-0001 on her search for warmth and love through her relationships with five human girls: Youko, Shiori, Shizuka, Shimako, and Yumi.
1. Thirsty and Lonely Lips

** - QUANTUM LILY -**

* * *

**Filament One **

**Thirsty and Lonely Lips**

* * *

_In a very distant future, in a very different world. _

_2400 Anno Domini._

"Say, are you an American? Why do you have such light, blonde hair?" asked the curious, wide-eyed kindergartner with a stunning forehead. "Is your papa American? Or is your mama American?"

The thoroughly Japanese girl glared at her intrusive and presumptuous companion, baring her two small rows of teeth. Rage flared in her.

"Get lost, _dekochin_!"

A shove and a punch, and then all Hell broke loose. The bruised and enraged Eriko shrieked and pulled at Sei's hair and backpack, while Sei slapped the other's face and tussled angrily against her. Little Sei was slightly stronger than tiny-tot Eriko, but the latter managed to scratch Sei's flinching eyelids and push her back roughly. Sei's teeny feet and shoes stumbled and twisted against the concrete pavement as she lost balance.

Skin stinging and ankle smarting, she rubbed her eyes wildly, staggering onto the road beside the kindergarten bus stop and swinging her fist blindly in the air.

The frantic screech of the delivery truck and the horrified honking of the shocked driver drowned out Eriko's scream of warning.

A small, fragile body was hurled into the air from the crushing momentum of the massive vehicle.

The world went black, tinged with the red lining of blood.

* * *

"Sensei! Please, please tell me she will make it through the night."

The doctor pushed up his glasses wearily. His words were grim. "I'm sorry, Satou-san. I will keep the details to a minimum, although I have to be as honest as I can bring myself to be. Your daughter's spine has been shattered at several vital areas. Her skull has been crushed. She's lost... part of her head... and her organs are damaged beyond recognition. For a small child to suffer such grievous wounds! There's no question, I would be doing you a disfavor if I didn't tell you her condition is beyond critical. Even if we could keep up her respiration and feed her by injection, in our experience she'd only remain in a vegetative state with such brain damage."

Tears stained the hospital floor. "Please, please, sensei! I'll do anything to save my precious Sei! And if this is all you can do - "

"It's not," came the reply, "but I'll need help... and permission."

The doctor reached for the phone and began to dial tersely.

"Yes, this is Tokyo Metropolitan Hospital. Can you please put me through to Lillian Academy?" The doctor's eyes shone. "Yes, it's going to be one of _those_ requests. Perhaps it's not the first case. But this little girl's life is in danger. Surely she deserves more than the usual polite rejections. It's not about the usual outlandish demands for immortality, or even the prolongation of life. This little one's life has barely begun. Please hurry and let the Abbess know. There isn't much time."

He hung up and dialled a shorter number. "Nurse Masako?" he prompted quietly. "Please make preparations. Yes, her heart is barely beating. Every breath is accompanied by a gush of blood. She's probably go into a comatose state in ten minutes. The scientists from Lillian will be coming in about half an hour."

As the line cut, he lowered the phone and looked at the grief-stricken, terrified mother of Satou Sei, his expression sombre.

"I've given the go-ahead for my staff. I've pulled some strings and wrung permission out of Lillian Academy's headmistress," he said.

"Please, Ma'am... don't regret this."

* * *

_Several years later at Lillian Academy. The beginning of the new school year _

"Satou-san?"

The ebony-haired girl's hands were folded politely before her dark green uniform, and her smile was more generous than usual. "Have you considered any after-school clubs yet? If you don't mind, would you like to join me for the club fair? We were in the same group, after all."

The beautiful first-year looked at the newcomer blankly, before pausing to think. "You mean the middle school exam group?"

"I'm sorry?"

"It's been a long time since I've been called Satou-san." Sei was mindful that the other was looking at her long, waist-length tresses. "I'm more used to hearing digits, numbers, and calculations than words. It's been a while, _Youko-san_."

"Thank you for telling me, Sei-san," riposted Youko wryly.

"You're welcome."

They glanced at each other shyly, and shared a chuckle together.

Youko drew nearer, so that their green and silver collars were beside each other. "But according to the school handbook, we're supposed to address each other by our last names, not our first."

Sei gave a small smile. "Did you approach me because you felt excluded from our class too?"

Youko stared at her. "Not really. I get along with most of the girls just fine. I was interested in you."

Sei's smile faded. "I see. You're just a meddler. That's disappointing."

Youko's intelligent pupils twinkled. "At the risk of confirming your suspicion, I think there's something wrong with your eyes."

"Huh?"

"The light in those grey eyes don't seem to reflect moisture, Sei-san. It's too perfect, too artificial. Are they possibly not eyes, but optical sensors?"

_Optical sensors_?

Sei's irises - no, metallic scanners - refocused themselves on the human girl, reflecting her shock. "I don't know what you're talking about. Have you gone crazy?" she lied.

"No," said Youko softly. "I haven't, Gigantea-0001."

"How do you know that name?" growled Sei, not sure if she should be hostile, cautious, or both.

"I don't randomly approach classmates for no reason. I entered this scientific Academy through government funding. Two weeks ago I was awarded the Akihito Scholarship because I'm the excelling student in all the school's fields of science. I have a particular... interest... in robotics and android engineering. Since I'm being paid by the government, I assure you that I can be trusted." Youko's eyes shone. "In return for the freedom to do my own research about Lillian Academy's technological marvels, the sponsors of the Akihito Scholarship want me to take care of Lillian's most advanced, most prized creation. You are this school's crowning achievement. You, who embody the triumph and tragedy of humanity in a single body..."

Sei looked at Youko sharply, the carbon filaments inside her artificial, plastic eyeball whirring in near-silence. "You sure have done your research. And you mean 'maintain', anyway. You're going to maintain me. Update the software within me. Fix my loose parts. Upgrade my security system. Repower my internal reactor. All that jazz."

"No." Youko smiled again. "I meant exactly what I told you. I'm going to take care of you."

Sei swallowed her surprise at this uppity, nosy student, turning away to stare outside the sun-dappled window.

She had nothing more to say. She could think of nothing to say.

* * *

_Two years later. Youko and Sei's final year_

"Thank you for your hard work, Rosa Chinensis! Your work is surpassing even that of the junior professors."

"I think it already has. That's why the teachers and scientists give Rosa Chinensis the free reign she deserves! In any case, let us know if you need any more help with moving those supplies."

The final-year student with the unfashionable hairdo nodded in brief acknowledgement. "Thank you." She gave an absent wave, turning her back even before her juniors had finished talking. Uttering an aloof farewell, she turned the corner of the tektite glass wall, allowing the moving walkway to take her to the far side of the air-conditioned corridor. Prim and neat in her pleated, dark green uniform, she lifted her black shoes off the rail, and then walked towards the metal door. As she waved her hand over the unassuming sensor beside it, the door made a quiet click and slid open smoothly, revealing a white room with lockers and benches with bright lights. This was the entrance to the private common room for high-achieving students, who had the honour of mingling with the Yamayurikai's Roses and their boutons.

Sitting on one of the benches and waiting for Youko was the same beauty she approached two years back, with the same light-hued hair that now draped down to her shoulders.

Her grey optic sensors focused on the over-achieving student. Her lips, one of the only parts of her body that was still made of flesh, curled upwards.

"School's out, Rosa Chinensis?" she asked.

"Good afternoon, Rosa Gigantea," said Youko. She sighed in exhaustion and fumbled for her locker keys in her schoolbag. "Care to join me for android club?" she asked, knowing that the answer would be a _no_. "I could use you as a practical example for our robotics project."

"I'd prefer loafing about at the greenhouse. It's what I've always done," said the cyborg lazily, her vocal configuration so advanced that it replicated the former human's unique, organic voice - something that even Youko didn't anticipate. Research into _voices_ was new even for Lillian Academy, and Youko had been so busy with other things that she hadn't had time to make a start in this field. "What's the point of even going to class when I can download all the teachers' notes with a thought?"

"No excuse, you skiver." Youko opened her locker door, stacking unneeded textbooks inside. Stuck on the door's reverse side was a well-kept photo of herself and her bouton, the queenly Ogasawara Sachiko. "How's the new hand?" she asked. "I've upgraded the quality of your titanium. Not only are you protected from the elements, but human-made threats too. Your first-class metal is connected by intelligent optic fibres. Powered with my central control, they can withstand any possible scenario of cyber-hacking into your brain - I mean, supercomputer. A safe supercomputer means a safe, free body. Call me paranoid, but you'll never need to worry about losing your pretty little head as long as I keep up with the latest software."

"How much of the school's budget have you blown on making me the coolest cyborg the world has ever known?"

Youko grinned. "The Akihito Scholarship is a quite a bit of money, you know. Too bad I can't spend it on shopping, but as long as it lets me do what I love, that's enough."

"What, experimenting on me and building my body parts?"

"No. I told you already." Youko smiled at Sei. "I love taking care of you the most."

The blonde beauty returned the smirk. She flexed her wrist, clenching and relaxing her fingers. "You know, this hand is way too strong. If I squeezed hard, I could probably tear through muscles and break bones. I prefer something more organic, more like flesh and blood. I've always been telling you that. What if I hurt you when I touch you?"

"In what circumstances are you going to actually squeeze _me_?" sniffed Youko, before realizing that she probably shouldn't have expressed it that way. Sei raised an eyebrow as they both became quiet.

"You know, dummy," muttered Sei, and her grey optics reflected conflicting data coursing through their fibres.

The top student and scientist gave her own kind of hasty snort as she pushed her bag into her locker. She closed it, looking down at Sei. She tried to speak, but for a moment her throat felt dry. The tense silence was deliciously awkward. _Fine_, thought Youko to herself. Perhaps she needn't have put it so starkly. After all, as one of her school's best students, Youko subscribed to the "Asimov Theory", named after a Western author who died centuries ago: that it was almost impossible for robots and cyborgs _not_ to develop independent emotions.

Gigantea-0001 - Sei's true name after that horrific accident - was living proof of that.

"You and I both live on campus, isn't that enough?" said Youko. "Of the two thousand students at this academy, five hundred are boarders. That's why we're still here on campus, and why you're staying with me."

"Which was why," said Sei off-handedly, "I was wondering if there was any chance of you snuggling your head between my legs. Let's go beyond the usual snogging session."

Youko fell silent, annoyed at how vulnerable she must have looked as she stared at Sei.

"My sensors can detect your heartbeat quickening and your sweat glands expanding at the prospect," said Sei. "Your pupils are becoming ever so slightly dilated. Are you revolted by your desire for something half-mechanical?"

"No, no, it's not that. Perplexed, yes. In more ways than you think. Revolted?" Youko shook her head. "By no means."

"Your thoughts, your emotions, your fears - they're all the product of this jelly, gooey thing in your cranium called your brain. Is that so different from the supercomputer inside my head of metal? Or do you think I have no soul like you do?" asked Sei rhetorically. "No beating heart?"

Youko smiled defensively, crossing her arms. She forced a titter to mask her nervousness. "Soul or no, it's not that I see you as somehow different... but how disturbingly, disconcertingly similar you are to me. It's surreal."

Encouraged, Sei pressed on. "I thought we could push the boat out further, my lifelong meddler."

Youko wasn't sure when Sei had started walking towards her. By the time she noticed that she was very, very close to her, it was too late. Youko tried to wriggle out of her project's arms, but reminded herself of Sei's claim that her titanium arms were far too strong. This was, of course, a weak excuse to enjoy a guilty pleasure. A simple utterance, one command, "Standby," would have sent Sei into the equivalent of a catatonic state, into the human version of unconsciousness. In all practicality, Youko had all the power, the human had no reason to indulge her vulnerability before the cyborg. But she did. "Who could have known that you were inclined that way," sighed the scientist.

"I don't even know if I am," laughed Sei, nuzzling Youko's neck with her silicon nose. The original cartilage had been long replaced, having been crushed into nothingness in her accident. "But gender - or even biology - doesn't really have much to do with love. Don't you agree, human?"

Youko tried to think of a witty reply to Sei's philosophical musings, but all she could manage was a pleased moan.

"When are you having dinner?" said Sei quietly, letting her go after a few moments. She buttoned up her black coat, hiding her school uniform. She casually slung her backpack over her shoulder, passing by the still Youko. "I'll be waiting," she whispered ticklishly into her ear. "Same time."

Youko closed her eyes in anticipation, in longing, as Sei's shoulder brushed by hers. "Alright. You insufferable android. You win. Same time, then."

* * *

Dinner was lonely because she was a boarder, away from her parents, and mealtime with the other students often dragged on too long. They preferred to actually socialize at night, whilst a student on an Akihito Scholarship was expected to study and research well into the evening. A takeaway bento, carelessly bought from the local 7-Eleven, was a luxury as far as Youko was concerned. Usually she made do with a Nissin cup ramen, cookable in two minutes and easily finished in five, washed down with a melon soda. The only time she had anything remotely resembling a real meal was when she was eating with Eriko.

_Is this the fate of all scientists and aspiring professors_? she wondered to herself._ To blow all their extra cash on their beloved creations and projects, leaving nothing for themselves? At least there is some meaning and logic behind such madness. I'm surprised I still don't need glasses_. She promised herself to eat better when she graduated to university, and eat especially well when she moved on to doctoral studies.

Her tummy growling discontentedly at being poorly fed, Youko entered the elevator and pressed B for basement. She waited for several minutes as the silent lift took her deep underground, beneath the school building of Lillian. The sliding, silver doors gave way to her white shoes as she slipped on a white lab coat over her school uniform, which she had worn from 7am to now. She walked towards the simple door, waving her hand again. It clicked and beeped, before hissing before her. "Even boarding students don't stay in the school block after ten o'clock," she sighed. "Only for you - "

She was in a massive chamber, an oversized bunker, with a forbidding ceiling about thirty feet high. The lights were off, with only a ten feet wide and tall computer screen on the wall providing the only source of illumination. At the centre was a platform, above which dangled the crowning achievement of Lillian Academy - a saved life, a girl who was given a second chance by the wonders of this futuristic age. She had paid the price of always existing from others as somehow _different_. But now, garbed only in a bra and blue jeans, her eyes closed tranquilly as wires plugged her raised, relaxed arms and bare back, she seemed to _be_ exactly what she looked like: an adorable young woman.

Youko stared up at the suspended body of her cyborg, never failing to feel awestruck.

"Only for you," she breathed.

Sei's eyes were gently closed, and Youko didn't want to wake her up - wait, no, Sei wasn't sleeping, there was no such thing as sleep for a half-robot. Just standby, power down, and turn off. Self-destruct, too, but Youko didn't want to think about that. Every student, researcher and professor who constructed robots in this academy were bound by international law to implement a self-destruct device within any being with advanced AI, in case the unthinkable happened. That had perhaps been the most uncomfortable moment of Youko's project. To put a bomb, completely under her control, inside the body of a girl who had once been human. That was the burden of someone who was assigned to an android being. Sei's guardian and protector was also the one who would determine her fate if anything "went wrong." She felt filthy, unworthy just thinking about it.

"Youko," whispered Sei, breaking into the scientist's thoughts. The pools of her opened optical sensors shimmered like lakes of quicksilver. "About time. I was bored."

Youko smiled. "Surely dinner is the most boring part of your daily schedule too, you who survive on lithium and solar energy."

"Yeah. It kind of is." Sei nodded at her suspended arms. "Bring me down."

"On second thought, it's late," murmured Youko. "Why don't you get some rest?"

"Please?" Sei fluttered her eyelashes.

The scientist sighed. She pressed a green button at the foot of the tall platform, and the dais below Sei's legs began to lower itself with a hiss, along with Sei and her extending cords. Steam issued from the platform as the green, red and blue cables affixed to Sei's back stretched and rubbed against one another. Then they wrenched themselves out of Sei's back, and her bare feet stumbled on the platform as it rumbled onto the ground. She rolled her shoulders, smiling. "You prefer me like this, don't you?" she said, moving her fingers down her half-naked torso and gesturing at her bare mid-drift.

Youko sighed. "Turn around."

Sei obeyed, allowing Youko to inspect the four openings, laid out in a square formation across her back. They exposed not only four plugs, but also a disconcerting mass of circuits inside her upper body. Youko inched closer and retrieved a small machine from her labcoat's pocket: a compact injector, powered by the limitless energy of the Sun itself. She brushed aside Sei's tresses to get at the plugs underneath the skin, sifting through her bright hair gently.

"Cold fusion," murmured Sei without looking behind her. "Weren't you scared when you realized so much of my body was fake?"

"Better artificial than nothing," whispered Youko. "Were it not for your mother's love and quick thinking, and Lillian's technology, you wouldn't be with me here tonight. I'm just taking over from where the professors left off."

Sei closed her eyes as Youko began work, inserting the machine into one plug and flipping the switch. Sei shuddered as the metal plates pressed into her body's motherboard and discharged their current. She felt her tired, slightly overheated computer systems cooling down, and Youko proceeded to the next plug, and then the next, before the procedure was completed with all four. Carefully pulling out the cold fusion injector, she closed the plugs with the hatch lids, which were the exact same colour as Sei's skin and affixed to her back. "It's done. You'll have plenty of energy for physical activity tomorrow. Best of all, you're green."

"This environment-friendly machine is more than what people put inside me," chuckled the bionic Sei quietly. "I mightn't be a human person, but I am a _person_."

"You're as full a person as anyone else. It's just that a normal, human life was stolen from you," disagreed Youko. "I intend to make it right, on your own terms. My precious cyborg."

Sei turned around, her knees weak, to feel Youko's arms wrapping tightly around her shoulders as she slipped down and buried her face in the human's chest. It only took one or two seconds before Sei closed her artificial eyelids and slowly gripped Youko's waist, her fingers clasping at the warm, burning human flesh and veins. Their breathing quickened together. Sinking further, she could feel the heat through Youko's uniform and white coat, through her own plastic, make-believe skin and metal conduits. At least it wasn't all fake - much of her body might have been destroyed when she was only a kindergartner, but _some_ parts of her, like her left foot and her thighs, still grew organically, and Youko's ability to build her body in accordance with her remaining human parts was a testament to the scientist's utter genius.

Processing the mammalian being's affection was just incredible. Unspeakable. It felt too good for words.

"When will I be able to cry, like you?" sighed Sei, clutching Youko harder, although she was careful not to hurt her.

"I'll think of something, I promise," replied Youko, kissing Sei's forehead tenderly. "I can install some kind secretion dispenser inside you that activates whenever your supercomputer processes the emotion... you're... feeling now..."

"I'm sorry if it sounds fake," conceded Sei sombrely.

"No, no, no," insisted Youko almost angrily, running a comforting hand through Sei's bangs. "That you hold these feelings is already more than enough, more than what I could have dreamed of when we met, more than what I could have ever fantasized when I tended to your body and mechanical heart."

"I don't want to be alone in this miserable bunker tonight," whispered the cyborg, "not when I know you've got your room to spare."

"I know." Youko closed her eyes helplessly as Sei's lips brushed by hers. "I know. I'm breaking the rules by letting you in. But they won't touch me. I am an indispensable part of Lillian's prestige, just like you, Rosa Gigantea."

She didn't let the half-robot go for several full minutes, stroking her hair in silence as they lost themselves in each other's thoughts and wonder.

"Don't ever leave me, Sei."

* * *

Naked Sei couldn't touch this skin and flesh enough. Not that Youko wanted her to cease this exploration, this curious mapping, this inquisitive stroking that ran across her body and loose pajamas like cool rivers of spring. "I wish you'd hurry up and let me do you, already," murmured Sei, running her fingers and lips along this smooth, bare back, kissing Youko's shoulder-blade and breathing in deeply. "When _will_ I get my first licking from you?" The human scent and warmth - it was unmistakable. It belonged to Youko, the girl who loved her.

"In good time. In good time, you'll enjoy what I let you have," whispered Youko, clutching a pillow with one hand and clasping the cyborg's artificial wrist with the other. Her eyes were lightly clenched, but she preferred looking into Sei's fake eyes when they made out. Sometimes it was fun to be a bit more playful, to just experience Sei's touch as it was. But when they gazed at each other, the game turned a bit more serious. "Sooner or later, I won't be able to resist. But I wonder to myself... what's the hurry, when I'm completely, already, all yours?"

"I'm holding you to that, okay?" Youko's bedroom was Sei's classroom, where she could take her time to relearn human anatomy and all the body parts she had lost. Oh, but Youko could still kiss her anywhere, could caress her anywhere, and her supercomputer would still overheat and fry. Sei drew back and moved down, lightly kissing that knee, those feet, and those curled toes. The virgin laughed helplessly, wriggling even as she held on tightly to her sexy cyborg. Scooping up the gasping scientist, Sei clutched Youko to her tightly, pressing her robotic body against the young human and kissing her neck with an almost fanatic devotion. Exultant Youko let out another sharp, uncharacteristic squeal, and grabbed Sei's hand, clamping it over her lips. Sei took the hint, grinning as she silenced the trembling, purring human being with a light press of her plastic fingers.

"Biological beings are so wet, so natural in their fleshly logic. I want to be like that too. To wallow in what you give me."

"I'll do my best," panted Youko, flopping down back onto the mattress as Sei gently released her. "You can already feel pain and pleasure, like any of us. But I know you're not satisfied. I'll try to make you everything you want." Her dark eyes glinted. "Thanks to you, I'm going to get panda eyes tomorrow. I'm still a student, you know. Unlike you, I don't skip classes."

"You know it was worth it."

Youko beamed in silent agreement, looking up at Sei's kind cyborg countenance. There were no questions that passed between them, no perplexed speculation on where life would have taken them if Sei hadn't suffered that early tragedy and, years later, Youko was called to care for her. Would they still have been brought together? Would they have been torn away by the matrix of theoretical alternatives and walked different ways? It all seemed to bizarre to contemplate. And in any case, just thinking about it was so baffling that it was more sleep-inducing than counting sheep.

"Good night, Youko," chuckled Sei, placing an elbow on the bed and propping up her head with one hand. She looked down at the yawning Red Rose. "Sweet dreams."

Rosa Chinensis slowly felt herself drifting off, watched over by the final wonder of the world, the last frontier of humankind in a brave new future.

* * *

A/N: Hello treasured visitor! Welcome to Quantum Lily and thank you for taking a look. Once more, another weirdo AU from weirdo me. ~(^.^)/

This AU is a soft sci-fi, where science fiction is used as a plot setting to explore emotions and relationships. Soft sci-fi is pretty much just an excuse to write about familiar things like love and sadness with a futuristic perspective. But I'm a complete beginner to "hard" sci-fi, which involves proper knowledge and research of quantum mechanics, theoretical time travel, robotic engineering, neuroscience, etc... it all makes my head spin. XD

Purists attack soft-sci-fiers for "exploiting" science fiction for their own wishy-washy stuff. That might be true and I'm not here to argue that. :P I do hope you enjoy the much slower pace, and the easygoing, fluffy, much more hopeful storyline. Thanks for reading!

* * *

**NEXT FILAMENT: DAWN'S WARM LAP.**


	2. Dawn's Warm Lap

**Filament 2**

**Dawn's Warm Lap**

* * *

A/N: Welcome, and thanks for checking out Quantum Lily, a Sei-centric fic for indulgent Sei fans. It's a lazy-paced storyline, focusing on Sei and her relationships with five characters with whom she shares close bonds: Youko, Shiori, Shizuka, Yumi, and Shimako. More like a small series of oneshots in the same AU than any ambitious story, it's a futuristic but easygoing meander through the Marimite "lilyscape" we know and love.

Thanks for reading!

* * *

_2400 A.D._

The architecture of the Yamayurikai Mansion had changed dramatically after three centuries. Once a two-storey mansion tucked away in a secluded part of the school grounds, the growth of Lillian into an accomplished academy for science and engineering - the two fields pioneering human survival - had left a mark on the school buildings as well. Decades passed, students came and went, alumni visited the hallowed halls of the chapel, and the wooden-and-brick corridors evolved into structures of titanium and tektite glass. No longer was the Mansion a house, but a glimmering, office-like tower with all the facilities the twenty-third century demanded, from sliding doors to automated security and elevators. It was a building that might have looked more at home in the City of London, or Hong Kong, or even the nearby capital of Tokyo. But this was how far Lillian had come.

High, high above the trees of the school grounds, the meeting room of the Roses was no longer a traditional, French-style pantry. It resembled more an open hotel lobby, an air-conditioned lounge for relaxing, reading, or discussion. It wasn't as ideal a place to do homework or plan school activities anymore because it was far too easy to drift away on those comfy sofas, lulled to sleep the gentle elevator music and the grand piano at the centre of the lobby.

What hadn't changed was the school uniform.

With her dark green attire and its pleats, the heir to the Gigantea crest slowly waved her thin, delicate hand over the entrance's sensor. It recognized her gesture and the door slid open, revealing an air conditioned, minimalist lobby with a three hundred and sixty-degree transparent wall, which allowed guests to enjoy a panoramic, sweeping view over the entire school grounds. It was a breathtaking lookout, especially with all the high spires of Tokyo in the distance.

Toudou Shimako let her lonely gaze fall on the lone woman in the room.

Her arms were spread relaxedly on the back of one of the black couches, her legs carelessly open and immodest. Having taken off her coat, Sei was wearing a pair of grey, faded trousers and a brown leather jacket. Shimako looked at her leather boots. The cyborg Rose patted a cybernetic hand on her waiting lap. "Feel free to rest your head here," she said. "It's all yours."

Without so much as another word, Shimako took up the offer. She crossed the room's red, carpeted ground, approaching the White Rose. She did her best to maintain a dignified, patient pace and not lose her composure. Sei smiled as Shimako drew near, watching the younger girl lower herself to her knees and extend two frail hands.

"Come on," encouraged Sei softly. She leaned forward slightly, taking those shivering hands and placing them on her lap. "It must be one of those days. Come to onee-sama."

Shimako let out an audible breath and buried her head in the heat, the scent, of her grande soeur who was more robot than human. "How strange," whispered the angelic girl. "You're supposed to be an android, but you're warmer than anyone in the entire school. To me, you are a burning sun, scorching the hearts of those who love you and nourishing them as well. Teasing but loving, inflicting stings that people want."

"Are you sure the heat's not just coming from my cooling systems?" chuckled Sei, stroking Shimako's darker locks.

Shimako smiled silently at the half-serious joke. "Why did God bless me with such a perfectly imperfect onee-sama?"

"I thought it was the _sakura_ tree that brought us together," pointed out Sei, looking up casually at the white ceiling lights affixed to the slightly domed ceiling. "Is there room in heaven for cyborgs, anyway?"

"I don't know, onee-sama," sighed Shimako, smiling. "Please don't draw me into your theological baiting. Best ask the Abbess, no?" She nuzzled Sei's lap further, pressing her mouth and nose against the cloth so hard she thought she'd lose her breath. Sei closed her eyes, as appreciative of the intimacy and gentle teasing as her _imouto_. "Do you remember?" asked Shimako softly. She closed her eyes, losing herself in the welcome of this nest of flesh and metal. "When you got mad with Youko last year?"

"Yeah. I do." It was hard to believe a cyborg could blush, but blush she did. Sei chuckled. "I guess I shouldn't have made fun of you. Now my circuits are going to fry with embarrassment."

Shimako began to giggle. She held onto the fabric of Sei's trousers lightly. "You're not going anywhere, onee-sama. You will sit here and listen to me narrate to you one of the most embarrassing episodes of your school life. See it as a lesson for trying to challenge Maria-sama."

"I can't win against you, can I?" Sei's optic sensors shone as she stared down at Shimako's blushing cheeks. "My yearning for biological affection brought you to me."

"It was almost summer vacation, shortly after you passed your rosary to me in spring. It was a Friday afternoon," continued Shimako, and Sei cringed. "You can't stop me with your sweet words. You were with Rosa Chinensis. She had just finished fixing you up, onee-sama. But you were about to fly into a childish tantrum that proves, beyond all doubt, that even the most self-assured have their immature moments."

Sei grinned in embarrassment, wincing as she steeled herself for Shimako's story. "Since when did you become so merciless, Shimako?" she chuckled.

* * *

"When are you going to hang out with different students?" wondered second-year Youko. She brushed aside the long locks of the android. Then she slowly undressed the android, beginning with the shirt, and then the bra that hid the artificial breasts - purely ornamental, as they were, but part of the growing young woman all the same. Yes, most of Sei's body had been irretrievably destroyed many years ago, but that didn't stop Youko from trying to make her life as normal as possible. "It's a famous secret that you're being maintained by me. That shouldn't prevent you from going out there and making new friends."

"What, you don't want me here?" demanded Sei.

"Don't act so insecure," tutted Youko. "I just want you to mix with others more and feel like a part of the larger group."

"Ah, yes. The _school community_," sneered Sei. Her disdainful smile quickly faded. "I'm not one of them. Literally. Never have been, never will be. You're different from the rest. I have you, and that's all I need." Sei glanced behind her, rolling a shoulder temptingly. "That's what you wanted, and I accepted, from the moment we met, right? You and me. Just the two of us."

Youko tried not to feel good about that. "Sei," she said patiently, squeezing her shoulders. "I understand the unfettered scorn you have for the wider academic circle at Lillian. But you need to be more adaptable to the changes around you. "

"I am, thank you very much," insisted the White Rose, her voice hardening. "Remember? That uneventful day when I was run over by a darn truck? No thanks to Eriko. And look how I turned out. Not too bad, huh? I've been pretty good at adapting already."

"Not my diagnosis," disagreed Youko coolly.

"So just what is my problem, Doctor Mizuno?" growled Sei, no longer hiding her burgeoning annoyance and displeasure. "Enlighten this half-human with your superior wisdom."

"For starters, smarty-skirts, it's nothing to do with your artificial parts, but your heart," began Youko -

"I don't _have_ a heart!" cried Rosa Gigantea suddenly, wrenching her shoulders from Youko's hands. She looked at her carer reproachfully. "Oh sure, I know you're being all poetic and metaphorical. Still... I wish I had a real body so I didn't have to put up with your approval or disapproval all the time!" snapped the android. "Not a day goes by. Not one day. I feel so indebted to you... yet so helpless."

Youko looked stunned, completely taken aback by the diatribe she was witnessing from the usually suave, calm girl. But Sei was glaring at her own hand, raging as if she had already bottled her insecurities for many months. "If... I wasn't... made of these metal and wires and filaments and processors..." She stared straight at Youko. "I'd never have to rely on you to hold up my world!"

_Carry your world? That's what you think I've been doing all this time_? thought Youko frantically. "You have to make peace with your circumstances," she insisted in near-panic. "You're very lucky to have survived that traumatic accident."

"Save it," snarled her White counterpart. "I've heard it all before from everyone, ever since I awoke from my coma and was told my mushed brain had been replaced by a neuro-computer. I'm trying to move on and make something of my life. I know you're trying to help, but sometimes you just pull me back into those memories I'm trying to leave."

"But can you ever flee your own memories? The data of your life?" challenged the Red Rose quietly. "Especially with the supercomputer I built into you?"

Sei stared at Youko angrily, her ire hiding her shyness and sense of total nakedness before Youko's gaze. She flicked back her waist-long hair. "That's exactly the kind of thing I hate hearing you say. I suppose you registered a patent for my tits, too?" she cried, stomping off in a vulgar huff. She strode down the corridor, turning a corner and disappearing.

Youko's shocked hand twitched as her fingers instinctively reached out for the fleeing android. Her unprepared eyes were wide in shock.

"Sei... you forgot to put your shirt back on."

* * *

Sei had snapped at her. Surely it was the way she had phrased it, or perhaps the fact that she bothered arguing at all? Yes, Sei was feeling fragile, but this was the first time that Youko had underestimated the tension between her and the cyborg she attended to.

Rosa Chinensis sighed helplessly. She was a scientist and took a ruthlessly scientific approach to life. Science, after all, sustained life itself. But the actual things that made life worth living, that science protected - faith, poetry, kisses - were completely unscientific and mysterious.

Love and relationships were bemusing, difficult things. And her heart was now hurting, throbbing painfully. Sometimes, she wanted to yell at Sei for not knowing just how powerful her voice was. Anyone who knew Rosa Gigantea would understand. Her words exercised an almost uncanny force: one kind sentence from Sei could make the entire week magical, but any ire, not to say the furious barrage of wrath like what Rosa Chinensis had just suffered, was just...

Crippling.

"What should I do now...?"

* * *

It had been three weeks since a single word or glance was exchanged between the usually inseparable pair.

Shimako peered past the open door of the second-year classroom. She caught the eye of a senior, and bowed. "May I speak with Rosa Gigantea, please?" she requested.

"Of course, Rosa Gigantea en bouton," came the reply.

Shimako walked past some chairs and seniors, towards the desk at the far end of the classroom's corner: Sei sat there with her head down, tucked amongst her folded arms. Was she tired and trying to catch a nap?

Or was it something more serious?

Of course, Shimako realized in concern. Sei depended on Youko for the maintenance of her body parts. If she was refusing to let the scientist anywhere near her, then the consequences could be much worse than a broken relationship. Unoiled joints. Outdated antivirus software. Faulty connections between metal wires and human nerves. Only Youko's genius could keep Sei's human and robotic components running harmoniously. If this kept up for much longer, Rosa Gigantea would...

_I have to think of something_, decided Shimako urgently.

"Onee-sama," prompted the worried bouton as she stopped beside the android's body. "This is a bit unseemly for the White Rose. You're falling apart." _Literally_, she thought anxiously.

"_Guuh_." Sei's reply was muffled and groggy. "Oh, it's you, Shimako. I guess it's okay then."

"Onee-sama," said Shimako nervously. She decided to try a different strategy. Appealing to Sei's sense of self-preservation would be useless. She had a penchant for self-destruction that kept Youko busy enough. But perhaps she could appeal to her conscience... "Is this not enough? Have you not made your displeasure clear? Is it not time to make up with Rosa Chinensis?"

Sei lifted her face from her folded arms and looked up at Shimako, her optical sensors foggy.

Shimako pushed on bravely. "I heard from Sachiko-sama, that you've been refusing to even look at Youko-sama. I don't wish to see you like this, onee-sama. I've been with you long enough to know what you're really feeling. You hate conflict as much as Rosa Chinensis does. And she is someone irreplaceable to you. You know that in your heart of hearts."

"Pooh," sighed Sei, rubbing her head against her forearm. "What a bummer. What should I do, Shimako? Youko and I are both so proud. And how can we make up?" she added. "You can only make up if there was some argument or dispute. There was no argument." Her face darkened. "She just said something stupid without knowing how I'd feel. Pure and simple."

"And do you want her to be hurt?"

"Not in particular, although if she is, I'd say it serves her right."

Shimako's eyes glimmered. "Please tell me, onee-sama. If she deserves to be hurt, then _who_ should she be hurt by? If it's no one else, do you feel it's your duty to hurt her? That it is your right and prerogative?"

Sei looked taken aback at Shimako's thoughtful challenge. "Well... if you put it that way... the logic sounds a bit icky. No... I guess I wouldn't go there." She fell silent, sullenly looking outside the window and at the bright sun, the blue sky, and fluffy clouds. The window overlooked the school's netball court, and there were Lillian students outside playing in their white PE kits.

"It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" sighed the cyborg, resting her chin on her palm.

"Yes, onee-sama," smiled her human protégé. "It doesn't suit your mood."

"I got mad for such a stupid reason," grumbled Sei. "I don't even really remember what she said that made me blow up. Maybe I was just feeling angry at myself for depending on her so much."

"You are still human, no matter what modifications are made to your physical self," reassured Shimako. "There is no shame in behaving like one. Isn't that the freedom you want?"

Sei's glass irises glimmered. "Yeah. You're right." She paused. "Can you kneel down for a moment?"

Shimako blinked. "Here? Now?"

"It's lunchtime. No one will care."

Puzzled, Shimako slowly shuffled her feet and bent her legs, lowering herself so that she was now looking up at her grande soeur. Her skirt scraped lightly on the floor. They gazed at each other, and before Shimako could speak, Sei had leaned toward her and planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. Shimako shut tight her eyes instinctively and dared not move as Sei's lips sifted through her bangs and pressed gratefully against her skin. Then it was over, and Shimako gazed up at Sei in embarrassment.

Sei winked. "I won't let myself break Youko's heart that easily."

Shimako lowered her gaze, unable to help fluttering her eyelashes. "Forgive me for speaking so frankly with you, onee-sama. Of course, I will accept any reprimand you give me."

"You know I'm not that kind of senior." Sei took Shimako's head in her hands, her touch a loving caress. She kissed her again, and then a third time. "Thanks for knocking some sense into me. Your efforts won't be wasted."

The Gigantea sisters smiled at each other, their spirits uplifted and their bond unbreakable.

* * *

Where was she?

She wasn't in the classroom. Maybe she was in Shimako's.

No. She was right before her, staring outside the corridor window, to where the Lillian greenhouse was in the immediate distance.

Sei turned her head and looked at the Red Rose, silent. Her face was impassive, although her brow was slightly raised.

"Can we talk?" asked the other, unable to hide the hint of desperation in her voice.

"Let's make it quick," said Sei nonchalantly.

Rosa Chinensis took a deep breath. "Look, I don't care who's right. I'll concede everything if you want me to. Just... don't ignore me. Who was the winner in the argument, who was mistaken: don't you think these concerns are so petty and meaningless compared to an actual relationship, between two real people?"

Sei maintained her evasive stare.

"Don't pretend I don't exist," begged Youko, the pain in her words palpable. "Don't wish me away." She lowered her head. "I would prefer that you shouted and screamed at me. Slap me, even. You know I'm not the one to avoid your hand. Then, at least, I could talk to you."

Youko shuddered, closing her eyes in worry.

"And... there's something else more important than my feelings. It's been a week and you haven't let me come near you at all. I haven't done the routine inspection of your body, or recharged your cold fusion power cells. I fear if we stay like this any longer, I won't be giving the proper care you need."

Sei's motherboard couldn't help melting somewhat. "I guess I am being a bit of a bitch," she muttered to herself, unable to suppress a wry smile.

Youko's eyes shone with unshed tears. It was hard to hold them back. "Sei, I'm sorry for what I said..."

"Come with me," said Sei suddenly, reaching out. Youko had half a mind to pull away when Sei grabbed her hand, but before she could run she was being led along the corridor by the other, who waved her hand over a sensor for the emergency staircase. Up the flights of steps she ran, with Youko struggling to keep up with her. But Sei's grip was firm and warm, and as they practically slammed into the door at the top of the staircase together, breaking into a fit of giggles, the sunlight that broke through onto the roof of the school block also cast a nimbus around Sei as she hugged the surprised science student tightly.

"I already forgot what it was you said that made me hurt you." Sei's eyes were closed, her mouth speaking into Youko's shoulder. "So forget it. I'm not hiding from you anymore. I was probably afraid, Youko. Afraid of how much I needed your comfort."

Youko's fingers inched around Sei's back, before digging lightly into her. "Oh, you're full of surprises. You think you're so clever," tutted Youko, her heart untwisting itself with relief, free from the tension and emotional stress that had been building up since their argument. It felt wonderful.

"Am I not?"

"Well... you're never dull." Youko untangled herself from their hug and looked shyly into Sei's optic sensors, which glimmered apologetically.

"Listen..." muttered the cyborg. "I've got a lot to come to terms with, even as a girl of eighteen years."

"_Especially_ as a girl of eighteen years. All of us have maturing to do. You don't need to apologize. Depending on someone isn't shameful at all if it's a dependence of love." They stood just before the open door to the rooftop, preferring the private darkness of the staircase. Youko stroked the android's hair, delighted and relieved beyond words. She sighed loudly, stealing a smell of those golden tresses. "If I don't look after you, who will? And you don't need to feel scared of being close to Shimako-chan. I want you two to be closer."

"Yeah," whispered Sei. "After I cooled down, I think I realized that. That Shimako's humanity is priceless." Her hands gripped Youko's flushing cheeks. Before Youko could wriggle away, those organic lips from a cybernetic being had found her trembling mouth. "It's not fair, Youko. I mean it," whispered Sei. She gently pushed her caretaker up against the wall behind them, pinning her into submission. Their black shoes pressed together. "I actually want to do some of the things you tell me to. I want you to be pleased with me, too. But I don't want to be with anyone else but you. Why can't you feel the same way?"

"Oh, you blackmailer," reproached Youko, breathing heavily as she gave her human self over to her. "How am I supposed to win when you challenge me like that...?"

They kissed and nibbled at each other for several delicious minutes.

"Hold my wrists, Sei," urged Youko hushedly, her eyes fluttering in relish of the loving moment. "Hurry, hold them."

Sei silently did as Youko asked and gripped her thin wrists gently. Youko tilted back her head and bore her neck to the android. She tittered, waiting. "If you wish to overpower me, you should do it right. Don't let me escape. Save me from myself." Heeding the invitation, Sei silently stroked her lips and wet tongue over the human skin. Yes, even her restored synthetic tongue was a fluid-generating appendage, a product of Youko's engineering marvel. Even Sei needed the means to express how she felt about her. The liquid wasn't saliva proper, but it came damn close. The student congratulated herself silently for having thought of everything, down to the last meticulous detail.

"That's weird," murmured Sei, her face sad. "You've been doing exactly that. You never let me escape, and because of that it's you who've saved _me_." She smiled, her mouth processing Youko's human taste. The information was saved and embedded into her database, with multiple samples. "You will take care of me forever."

"Yes. Yes! I will," exclaimed Youko in choked gasps. Her knees were buckling, and she slowly, slowly slid down the wall as Sei overwhelmed her with kisses. The firepower was simply too much; why bother resisting? "I will, I will, I will. My talents are for you. All of them. Always."

Sei caught the falling Youko in her arms. "I'm sorry for hurting you, Youko. It looks like the supercomputer you put inside me isn't perfect."

"No. You couldn't be more wrong." Youko clutched her beloved android with an almost ferocious strength. "It is because you can _feel_ so freely that I frankly think I've done a magnificent job."

"And this time, I'm not scared to admit you did," gushed Sei. "Close your eyes, dummy."

Youko laughed and obeyed, still pinned against the wall by her beloved.

They kissed each other on the lips again, and it was as if the past week had been some passing nightmare, a bad spell in bed.

But next week was going to be better. Much, much better.

* * *

Sunset. Skyscraper shards reflected the glimmer of the retiring star.

It was time to go home.

Standing before the ancient statue of the Virgin Mary, third-year Sei adjusted the collar of her black coat, wondering if she should bludge inside the greenhouse or head over to Youko's dorm. Living on campus was convenient, but it could get boring. There was something to be said about having one's own flat or house to go back to after a hard day's work. No surprise that she preferred sleeping with Youko in the latter's room: her own android chamber was as cold and unfriendly as any room could get.

She paused as she heard a crinkling of leaves, and somehow she could tell who it was without turning around.

"Do you want to stay behind a bit longer?" She grinned. "Or are you looking embarrass me more with some old stories again?"

Shimako nodded, her two hands clutching her leather bag. "I was going to head into Tokyo tonight. _Otou-sama_ has a dinner appointment and has dragged me along."

"You and your high-flying monks and temple abbots," huffed the White Rose, slinging her schoolbag around her. "Then you've obviously got a few hours to kill before you meet up with your old man." Sei finally looked back at Shimako, winking. "I don't feel like annoying Youko yet. Want to join me for a coffee? Then we can try our luck with some plushies at the claw crane machines. Maybe they should start making toys of me..."

"Onee-sama doesn't drink liquid anyway, so I'll pass on that," said Shimako, her smile ever so subtle, "but playing some games sounds fun."

"Then let's take the bus." Sei turned to face Shimako, extending a slender hand. The bouton blanched, looking at the fingers and back to Sei's friendly features.

The cyborg smiled pensively. "Ah. You're too old for that kind of thing, aren't you?"

She slowly walked past the surprised, silent Shimako. "Oh, well. Come on, then."

Shimako came to her senses and whipped around. Her lip trembled as she stared at Sei's retreating, sunset-dappled back, at the swishing coat covering her school uniform. Somehow, even though the tall android looked so handsome, her retreating back, with a hand in her pocket and her schoolbag slung over her shoulder, looked so lonely.

Even though Youko loved her with the passion of a fiery constellation.

Even though Shimako loved her just as intensely.

Rosa Gigantea en bouton's heart welled with silent affection. Her wide eyes struggled not to grow teary.

_Onee-sama. My wise, thoughtful, conflicted, complicated, fragile, onee-sama_.

Feet pattered along the ground. Sei started as she felt a hand clutching her arm. She turned around, gazing down at her petite soeur, who had caught up with her. Shimako had tucked her blushing cheek against Sei's shoulder, and she was completely silent as she led Sei towards the school gates and the bus stop.

"On second thought, maybe we should just have a sit-down at the park," murmured the White Rose quietly. "I'm not really in the mood for the arcade anymore."

Shimako nodded. "Neither am I."

Indeed. How could they enjoy neon lights and mayhem, when they preferred to cuddle in silence amongst trees, shrubs, and flowers?

* * *

**NEXT FILAMENT: AN ADVENTURE IN ROME. **


	3. An Adventure in Rome

**Filament 3**

**An Adventure in Rome**

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading this little Sei-centric fanfic. This chapter/mini-story came about as a result of my pro-Shizuka x Sei shipping tendencies, and as this story revolves around Sei and the girls she has intimate contact with, some might debate whether Shizuka is qualified to be part of the Shimako/Shiori/Yumi/Youko/or even nameless elder Rosa Gigantea (XD) circle. My opinion is that she does, and if Sei's quirky adventure in Rome can add some weight to that opinion, I'll be more than happy. ^.^ I hope you like it.

* * *

_Youko's dormitory room_

It was rare to see Rosa Chinensis so irritated and frustrated. "Competing with Sachiko and I for research funding? How dare this scientist have presumed to challenge me, the Red Rose? The winner of the Akihito Scholarship!" she huffed, shuffling through the copious files and sheets of paper on her desk. "And even with Shimako-chan! Aren't you concerned too, Sei? She might not be at this school anymore, but this student apparently wanted to surpass my standing in the eyes of the senior scientists! I hear she even had designs on the position of Rosa Gigantea en bouton!" Youko glanced at the cyborg on her bed. "If you aren't worried for my reputation, at least show some concern for your _imouto_."

"Some random nobody? Surpass _you_? What a joke," drawled Sei lazily, still in her school uniform, her shoes flung in a corner of the room. She lay in a provocative position amidst the bedsheets. "Even for you, that's paranoid."

"No," disagreed Youko, despite feeling slightly reassured by Sei's effortless, almost unintended compliment. "Haven't you heard the new name swirling around this mysterious figure? The Black Rose. Not many know about her since she's left the school, but people have started calling her Rosa Canina. It sounds ominous enough, doesn't it?"

Rosa Gigantea yawned. "Searching for Latin-English match. Not found."

"Excuse me?" said a perplexed Youko.

"I just used my wireless hub to connect to the net in my head," said Sei, playing with her hair, "and I've discovered that _Canina_ translates as pink, not black." Youko looked almost visibly deflated. "The evil Pink Rose doesn't sound so daunting now, does she?" smiled the cyborg, stretching contentedly. "For all your research acumen, you shouldn't have relied on rumours and gossip. A Googleplex search would have cleared that up as quickly as I just did."

"Very well. But that doesn't change the fact that Rosa Canina was a rival to the interests of the Yamayurikai." Youko glanced at Sei again. "Find out what she wanted with us. I don't like to have rivals skulking about in the shadows. I want us to solve this little problem - this time _without_ you seducing anyone, thank you very much."

"I'll make up for any shenanigans I get into. I promise." Sei grinned. "Although it'd be so much easier if you just let me make sweet, passionate love to you already."

"No taking my virginity just yet," said Youko, raising a finger to her lips. Her sharp eyes glimmered. "I'm saving my surrender for Christmas Eve."

"Oh, why?" groaned Sei. "You're going to force this cyborg to wait till December to taste your glorious body and soul?"

"Because it's the most poignant night of our memories: the day of your coming eighteenth birthday, and the eve I held you in my arms after Shiori-san left us."

In the past, when Youko even brought up Shiori's name, Sei's lip would have trembled with renewed pain. But it was totally different now. She simply chuckled again. "It's still October. How can I wait for two more months?"

Youko's slightly parted lips were deeply flushed red. "You won't regret the agonized waiting, and the explosive nova of satisfaction that follows. Now, go deal with Rosa Canina. Leave me to my work." The cyborg's optics glinted in cheeky obedience, her sensors whirring quietly in happiness as she scooped up her shoes and walked out of Youko's room. But before she left, her voicebox emitted something that made the Red Rose's heart skip several beats.

"Your body, heart, soul... I'll protect them all until I'm a scrapheap of junk."

* * *

Sei's scanners (which were calibrated with a search for anything associated with "Rosa Canina") led her to a dark, abandoned basement beneath Lillian Academy's sports court. It was after school hours, so it wasn't hard to get to the basement door without anyone noticing. She digitally hacked into its coded system and disengaged its lock from within her own supercomputer. She pushed the otherwise old and unextraordinary door open.

She was in a musky, cobwebbed cellar, and it was strange for Lillian Academy to host a place so... untidy and unkempt. That meant only one thing: this small part of the school was ancient. It was "old ground", a section of the onetime school before its transformation into a centre of science, engineering, and robotics. This was probably a segment of the old wing that wasn't even on the many renovation plans that were passed down through the centuries. Sei raised her eyebrow, her attention turning to a table - and it was no ordinary table.

"A schooldesk?" she muttered to herself. It was a decaying table; its corners had chipped away and its underside seemed to have been chewed halfway through by insects. Her scanners couldn't detect any matches for this table from the current students. She went through the entire, updated school list in her head, all two thousand, nine hundred and thirteen girls. "Why did my search engine lead me down here, then?" she wondered.

Her optics narrowed in suspicion.

"Could this have been... Rosa Canina's schooldesk?"

The whole idea felt slightly eerie, almost haunted. Where was Rosa Canina, then? Because this table must have been the last living relic of a girl who seemed to have disappeared long ago. Sei suppressed a shiver from ringing down her metallic spine. She was about to look around the dark, mysterious room for any more clues when she caught sight of a small, azure glimmer on the worn, dusty table. It was a spherical, blue pocket device, with a single red button. Her inquisitiveness aroused, Rosa Gigantea approached the little machine slowly, and once her sensors had scanned and cleared the area of any potentially dangerous substances, she strode forward, reaching for it. She scooped it up in her hand, peering at it carefully.

A quick scan of its inner wires and core instantly told her what it was.

"A quantum time machine... huh?" Sei's grey optics narrowed. "An impressive construct. Few scientists or students could build something so intricate on such a small scale. But there's only one calibration, one button," she muttered to herself. "And what is it doing on Rosa Canina's desk...?"

A theory dawned on her, and she shivered. Could it be that this mysterious Rosa Canina had somehow predicted others would try to get in contact with her? And that she had left these clues for anyone who would try to look for her?

Who exactly was she, then? She was most surely a student at this school. Had she graduated? Was she still here? No, wait, Youko had already confirmed that she was no longer a student at Lillian.

Or, more macabrely, had she possibly died and left all this behind as some kind of testament?

Sei's supercomputer began to run wild with possibilities. If Rosa Canina had since passed away, did she die recently, in the past few decades? Or had she died long ago, when this wing of the school was left to rot? When this place was consigned to irrelevance with the old world of the twenty-first century?

There was only one way to find out.

"I'll play your little game, Pink Rose," smirked Sei. "I'm an invincible cyborg. I'm not scared of you." And with that, she pressed her thumb on the red button.

_Bzzzzzzzttt_.

The White Rose gasped and looked around her wildly as a blue illumination from the pocket quantum machine exploded forth and engulfed her body. "Uh-oh." Swept up in the cerulean radiance, she couldn't help intuiting that this was Rosa Canina's intention from the beginning. But it was too late to react or run away, and Sei was blinded. She had to close her eyes to prevent her optic filaments from overheating and frying from the brightness. She covered her face with a forearm, grimacing. She sure hoped she hadn't made a big mistake.

"Here we go," she muttered.

* * *

Still in her dark green school uniform, Sei blinked at the sudden glaring sunshine, covering her squinting optics briefly blue light from the pocket quantum traveller was gone. "What the...? Where am I?"

A bright, Mediterranean sky welcomed her. Except that now, taller than the Leaning Tower of Pisa itself, were glass skyscrapers that reached for the Italian empyrean.

"Huh?" she muttered again, looking around. "Where did this little thing take me?" she wondered, before stopping short. Someone was walking towards her, and as her computer finally recalibrated itself to her current geographical location, the surroundings suddenly became clear - she was in a large park, surrounded by people, mostly tourists. Cameras were snapping, children were laughing, couples were kissing. But as Sei slowly turned around, realization dawning on her, there was only one person that mattered here.

"Welcome to Rome," invited a soft, queenly voice. Its speaker wore a long, beige jacket, hugging a slim figure covered in an Italian, floral-patterned blouse. She stood in black high heels, her long, pretty legs covered in dark stockings.

"My name is Kanina Shizuka, onetime Rosa Canina."

Sei's grey optic filaments registered black hair, short like Youko's, but human eyes like those of a swirling, blazing sun rather than of serene nightfall. Her skin was slightly paler, and her jawline was slightly softer. Oh yes, she looked more delicate. But she also looked more dangerous, more unpredictable. And Sei couldn't help feeling a bit concerned. She hated to admit it, but this... Rosa Canina looked quite the mature young lady, perhaps even more so than her. Still, this was weird. "So, are you dead or what?" wondered Sei aloud, scratching her head in puzzlement. "Sorry for being crass, but... I'm just trying to figure out what's going on here."

The dark-haired girl adjusted the collar of her jacket. "It is understandable that you'd entertain the possibility of my death. Indeed, my impending death would have been a better reason for the strange things I did all those years ago. But I'm afraid my situation was nowhere near as suspenseful. It was simply _you_, Satou Sei, that drove me to hatch such an elaborate plan to trap you, to force your gaze onto me.

"Allow me to explain," said Shizuka, as the Italian breeze blew at her rich black hair. "To be honest, you didn't know me before you activated that time device. I was actually your junior. But I had left Japan for Italy long before you could notice me. Mind you, I left for a good reason: I was going to train in Rome as a singer." She paused. "But knowing that I could never attract your attention was frustrating, especially when you were occupied by closer associates. But I am farsighted. Before I transferred, I chose to study quantum physics so I could show you what I'd be in this future. So that you'd know that Kanina Shizuka is an opera soloist employed by the Rome Philharmonic. This future is quite some years after I left our school. That is why I'm older than you. I didn't want you to see any other part of me. It is only now that I want you to see me and acknowledge me, as someone who has achieved her dream."

"Not bad, human," whispered Sei, sincerely impressed. Her optics clicked in acknowledgement. "It seems Youko was right to fear your genius. So, you made this machine?" she confirmed, taking the blue device from her pocket and holding it to Shizuka's bright eyes. "You wanted me to notice you, all this time." She smiled. "I suppose you're not letting me leave until I do something for you."

"You make it sound so unpleasant," chided Shizuka. "I spent most of my school years designing this quantum traveller so I could meet you. I have no intention to force you into anything and ruin such a precious chance to spend time with you."

"Sorry," laughed Sei, scratching her head. "It's not like I distrust you. I just don't really know you, so I'm not really sure what I can do to satisfy you..."

Shizuka lowered her eyes. "Come and watch me sing for the Rome Philharmonic. Then I want to unwind with you, at La Maison."

A quick search inside her built-in, wi-fi enabled computer revealed to Sei what La Maison was. "I didn't know you liked nightclubs," she said, grinning. "So that's your invitation? A simple date here in Rome is what you want with me?"

"Well, I _am_ in my twenties now. This is my future, remember? I don't go clubbing unless I have some special events on, and your arrival is certainly one of those."

Shizuka stared at Sei with a determined intensity that bordered on overwhelming. After several moments, the latter shrugged, closing her eyes in surrender. "I guess I can't pretend I don't want to go either. But..." Sei blinked innocently at Shizuka. "You might have a career, but I'm just a cyborg in a high school. Even a rear seat at your performance is probably more than my monthly allowance permits. Not that I even have that: Youko takes care of me for free."

"I've asked the orchestra to reserve a private booth for you," said Shizuka smoothly. "I told him you're a personal guest of mine. You'll get the best seat in the whole hall."

Sei gaped, then shrugged helplessly. "I guess that settles it. And... my clothes? Can't go in like this in my school uniform, can I?"

"Let me treat you to a shopping spree downtown," replied Shizuka immediately. She eyed the cyborg, looking her up and down. "You'd look beautiful in a red satin dress."

Sei chuckled at this most sudden invitation, unable to help enjoying the way Shizuka slowly, relishingly ran her bright eyes over her largely artificial body. "This whole time travel thing is still a bit weird to me, but I guess I won't say no. And I'm not going to say no to a first-class opera booth or a new dress. Take me wherever you want me to. I'm in your hands, my secret admirer. Show me what you've got."

After all, she had come this far into the future, across entire continents.

Why should she presume to disappoint the Pink Rose?

* * *

_8:45pm_

The lights had dimmed in the grand hall, and the hushed murmuring had died down. Sei felt awkward in her evening gown. She fiddled with the diamond necklace below her neck. Oh, yes, she looked absolutely stunning, utterly fabulous, like a glamorous pop star, but somehow it just didn't... fit her. Still, she managed to get comfortable in the spacious, comfy seat allotted to special guests of the orchestra. Shizuka paid for her dress, and then dinner, and finally used her connections to snag this cosy position nearest to the stage. Once they were done, they would head off to La Maison to let off the tension of the night's work. Shizuka was several years older than Sei now, but she had her connections in the nightclub too.

Sei chuckled to herself. An underage android like her could get used to this.

"Please welcome the Rome Philharmonic's rising star of the East, the angelic Kanina Shizuka!"

The lights were shining on stage, focusing on a single beautiful woman. Sei snapped out of her somewhat silly reverie, noticing the thunderous applause that the entire concert hall was welcoming Shizuka with. Resplendent in a pink gown that left her alluring shoulders bare, the Pink Rose curtseyed on the stage before the hundreds of listeners, raising her slender, white-gloved hands. Her feline eyes caught sight of Sei, but did not budge. Behind her was a full ensemble, a congregation of penguin-suited men and women.

Then she opened her mouth and breathed.

It was as if she was not singing, but breathing with the voice of seraphim.

Sei stared at Shizuka sing, at her magnificent gestures and concentrated expression complimenting her style perfectly. Sei wasn't well-versed in Western classical music, so she had no idea what she was intoning nor whose song it was. She didn't really feel like searching up the name of the piece in her supercomputer, either. She felt as if it would spoil the sublime mood of Rosa Canina's vocals, her pure mastery of the melodic vibrations. The cyborg could register every note, high and low, that Shizuka uttered, and All Sei knew was that the string and wind players behind her were carrying her on the clouds of their instruments, and at the Italian conductor's gentle guidance, she took the entire orchestra even higher into the sky. She was beautiful, dignified, and graceful as she gestured with her arms in tandem with her majestic voice. Oh, how high it could soar, and how close it would swoop towards the audience's fluttering hearts, only to soar back up to the high ceiling cruelly.

For her part, Shizuka lost track of time. She simply sang to the best of her ability, like any master of an art would do. But tonight, she was doing something more.

_Watch me. Turn your head this way and look at me. I beg you. Smile as I sing for you. I couldn't care less about this audience. This performance was meant for you. Smile because of me. _

_I brought you to this future, this world that you do not know, because I wanted to impress you, Sei-san_.

Suddenly, Shizuka stopped. Her larynx had no more energy. Her brain had no more words to offer her throat. that was because, as quickly as she had begun, she was finished. It was the end, and the violins had stopped as well. The entire orchestra had fallen silent, even if for a moment. Shizuka felt a jolt of instinctive, but ungrounded, fear. _Dear Maria-sama, keep me strong on my feet,_ she thought in panic to herself. She almost didn't know what to do next.

And then, in that flash of a silence, she heard it.

_Clap_.

_Clap_.

_Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap._

Shizuka stopped herself from gasping just in time as she noticed who was applauding her so loudly. It was Sei, Rosa Gigantea, who had stood up from her seat, even as everyone else was too stunned by Shizuka's stellar performance to move or breathe. Shizuka glanced at her favourite audience member, eyes briefly widening in surprise. It was the female cyborg of her dreams who was giving her a standing ovation before anyone else, in enthusiastic, wholehearted praise for all her hard efforts. It was as if with that big, wide, beaming grin, those mesmerized grey optics, and those frantically clapping, rapidly reddening palms, Sei was thanking her for not only taking her to see her sing, but for taking her to this distant future to meet her.

It was almost too much to take in. Satou Sei was giving her a standing ovation.

Satou Sei.

A standing ovation.

And then, before she could blink or think, the rest of the crowd burst into approving agreement with the young cyborg, rising almost together to join the lone girl's standing ovation. The old men and portly women, the middle-aged and even the young teens and children who had been dragged along by their parents - no one needed much convincing. Shizuka had been on top form, and she didn't disappoint. And so the members of the audience clapped, congratulating the Rome Philharmonic and its Japanese singer-in-residence for yet another incredible, soulful night of emotion and joy.

There was only one thing that could match the beauty of faith, or of lovemaking. That thing was music.

No longer able to control her own bubbling feelings from deep within, a single tear slipped down Shizuka's eye as she curtseyed deeply before the roaring, cheering crowd.

"Thank you, Sei," whispered the older woman, trying not to look for too long at her unrequited love. Her rising arms were shaking, her shoulders trembling. She accepted the applause, glancing up at the brightening ceiling briefly and gritting her teeth. As an accomplished artist with a growing celebrity status, Shizuka had won an award for her singing, and her debut album topped the classical charts for a full three weeks (even afterwards it remained in the top ten). People paid good money to watch her do what she loved most. But those triumphs were nothing compared to this one moment in her future, in her adult career...

When a certain someone she loved in the far-flung past...

Came to the future to watch her perform in all her live glory.

Shizuka retreated from her curtsey and raised her head high. She spread out her arms, accepting the whistling and cries and encores from the full, packed house. She wept in silence, struggling to hold back the flowing tears as the crowd blurred before her. She had waited for this for so many years. Yet Sei remained as clear as ever through her crying, still clapping away, with that affirming smile on her face.

This was the moment, after many long years of physics, opera training, and loneliness, she had prayed for.

* * *

_Rome. La Maison nightclub. 2:12 am_

The floor was packed to the flashing rafters, and the party was in full swing. "Are you sure Youko-sama will not hate me for this?" cried Shizuka hoarsely over the blaring DJ, a kaleidoscope of colours running across her calm face. Her voice was usually either placid or angelic, although everyone was reduced to shouting into each other's faces at the club. "Even though I never talked to her, I could tell a bond endured between the two of you. That is how much you love her. And I can never go back to the past to challenge that. I didn't design my quantum device with that in mind," she added wistfully.

"No," said Sei, grinning as they danced, their bodies pressing comfortably together. "I don't mind coming here anyway." She didn't need to shout, but simply amplified her vocal chords to a more audible volume above the music. "Don't underestimate how intimate Youko and I are. This little dance is nothing."

Shizuka lowered her head, her hips swaying side-to-side at the command of Sei's hands. Her heart hurt as Sei's swinging tresses brushed by her cheek. "A complete defeat for me, isn't it...?"

Sei's eyes softened as Shizuka turned her head to look back at her. "Don't think of it as a defeat. You'll underrate yourself."

_Clubs probably aren't for Youko or Shimako, though_, she thought to herself. _This is my first time. Might as well enjoy it while they're not around_.

The lights brightened even further, and Sei could see the perspiration dripping from Shizuka's forehead and trailing gently down her skin. Their eyes kissed each other's, and Sei cupped Shizuka's cheek in the palm of her hand. The throbbing bass thundered into their very bodies, their arms embracing keenly, their high heels scraping along the dance floor. Sei's leg brushed by Shizuka's, and as the beat shook the floor, she tossed back her head jubilantly, laughing as her felt her mussed hair swinging side to side. Dozens of arms thrust high into the blinding air. She felt Shizuka hold her tighter, and a great cheer rang out on the floor.

The cyborg felt deliriously good. Shizuka laughed involuntarily as the playful cyborg briefly lifted her up by the waist, but was taken aback by the half-robot's extraordinary beauty - the way the younger girl looked up at the opera singer was too disarming, almost disturbingly so.

"Thanks for bringing me from so far away to your future, opera star!" cried the cyborg loudly, reaching forward and planting a sudden kiss on Shizuka's cheek. "Youko's awesome and all, but she's still too young for nightclubs. I'm underage too. But I get to party hard thanks to you. This is fantastic."

Shizuka never looked so pleasantly surprised, and as the DJ lifted his hands up in euphoria, Sei set Shizuka back down, not letting her go. She drew closer. "It's a pity I had to come to the future to meet you, Rosa Canina," whispered the cyborg into Shizuka's ear, and for some reason, Shizuka could hear her every word above the furore and lights. "We could have been friends."

"It's not too late," moaned ex-physics student, clutching Sei's fingers before they could move away from her nose. "Please, tell me it's not too late. I tried everything, everything, to make you just look at me. I tried to usurp Shimako-chan's position as your petite soeur. I tried to run for a position in the Yamayurikai. All in a reckless attempt to have you turn your head. Even if it might have been in anger. Or irritation. Or curiosity. Or amusement. Anything..."

Sei's robotic optics twinkled. "All the things you did were very silly, you know. But you're right. It's not too late."

Shizuka felt the cyborg's lips pressing respectfully and tenderly against her open, amazed mouth, and her body seemed to move with a mind of its own. She wanted to cry as she inhaled the cyborg's loving breath. But she had already arrived at that twilight crossroads where her emotions were so entangled in joy that both tears and laughter seemed inadequate. Her knees went weak as she felt the soft, inviting, cooperative touch melt her loins and heart, and suddenly she couldn't think of what could happen next, but only what she wanted to transpire. All she could do was moan wordlessly as Sei kissed and cradled her amidst the sea of party-goers, silently assuring her that this night would be the best one of her life.

Her pained cry for Rosa Gigantea had reached across the stars and time itself.

And Rosa Gigantea, never one to disappoint, had reached right back.

* * *

Morningtide. The sun trailed past the curtains by Shizuka's bedside, unable to awaken the opera singer. But the half-robot, half-human who lay beside her was already up and about. She pulled on her blouse, the school uniform she had left before the dizzyingly wild night at La Maison, and left the clothes she wore at the club on her side of the bed. She stood up, stretching and yawning, before pulling her uniform back on. She slipped her bare feet into her white socks, and then into her shoes.

Everything Rosa Canina had done, had been done with Sei in mind, with the hope of meeting her in this universe. The Pink Rose never meant any harm. She just wanted Sei to see her, proud and with her head held high, doing what she loved, but sometimes pining for the cyborg to congratulate and kiss her. Well, she had finally gotten her wish, after the tireless construction of this little pocket time traveller, leaving Japan for Italy, establishing her career, and waiting for the day Sei would discover the name of the reviled "Black Rose".

Leaving behind the luxurious evening dress Shizuka had bought for her, Sei looked back at the sleeping lady. She reached for the spare pen on the bedside table, taking a scrap of paper in her pocket, and scrawled a short note onto it.

She grinned. Now that she was returning to the past, to a time when she never knew Shizuka, one might be worried that her memories of this magical meeting would be erased. But this would not be the end. Oh, no - by no stretch of the imagination.

They would never forget each other. Sei would make sure of it.

"It was a blast, Shizuka," murmured Sei fondly to the older woman. She took out the blue device from her coat pocket, the ingenious portable machine that had taken her to this future. She wasn't sure what she had to do, but somehow her intuition told her to press the button. She did so as she ran her eyes over Shizuka's sleeping body one last time. A loud buzz, and the blue quantum light surrounded her once more, whisking her physical form away from Shizuka's room, from her future presence. The crumpled scrap of paper from the past slowly drifted to the floor, drifting onto the snoring Rosa Canina's bedside.

On the scrawled note were the scribbled words:

_You forgot to give me your autograph. xoxo_

* * *

**- The End of An Adventure in Rome -**

**Next Filament: Rock Star Cyborg.**


	4. Rock Star Cyborg

**Filament 4**

**Rock Star Cyborg**

* * *

A/N: Thank you for choosing Quantum Lily for your fanfiction session tonight. I've just hit the halfway mark with this one - six special girls, six filaments. This instalment is about the girl that started it all for Sei, the one who took Sei on the emotional roller coaster of her life between ecstasy and despair.

This fanfic has been intentionally slower-paced than my other series-based work. The past couple of months has been a period of transition in my career, and while it has been more or less smooth, it has also been, inevitably I think, a bit stressful on me. Hence the long interval of updating.

Thanks once more for reading. (^.^)

* * *

In my life, only two girls have ever seen me stark naked.

One is Youko.

And one is Shiori.

I was never sure whose gaze made me burn brighter, flush warmer. I was never a human subject, but rather a half-mechanical object. I am a _thing_, a thing to be watched and touched and fondled. I was already a popular student in my second year. With Youko's help, I had grown beautiful, strong, and tall. I was an indestructible cyborg. I had powerful, slender loving arms that could protect anyone, woman _or_ man! I had mesmeric optic sensors that were more soulful than a human being's. But even as I said hello to my adoring, ditzy juniors while loathing them inside, I was a wreck of a living creature. I depended on the brains of one girl - one girl! - to keep my world together. Only she could maintain my infinitely intricate body and database. She needed to see every part of me... literally. She would open my head to input new data, wrench open my back to fix faulty circuits or tangled wires, dismantle my limbs and reattach me with updated models...

Barefoot with breasts bared, I would kneel on all fours on her workbench, watching her perform her scientific magic on me, like in one of those perverted, macabre, voyeur sex films. Every now and then she would take a break and stroke my hair to relax me, whispering, nibbling, titillating. You might laugh, but I honestly raged. I lost my composure even more. But I couldn't move, let alone resist. My bare body, all of it, was hers. And it tingled. It tingled with life and yearning down there, even though I'm more robot than woman - how the heck did Youko manage to make everything about me... so natural? So comfortably human?

So I stripped for her. I stripped myself stark bare whenever she asked me to, gritting my artificial teeth as I did so. I had lost most of the natural pieces of my head, to the truck that ran me over so many years ago. So could anyone blame me for feeling so damn vulnerable when Youko stroked me, looked intently at me, and lovingly repaired me?

She never hurt me on purpose, and on those rare occasions she accidentally did, it was easy to forgive her. She has been so gentle and kind to me.

Jesus, what kind of lonely complex do I have for her?

* * *

It was a meeting not meant to happen. I didn't want anyone else to see me as I was, a shadow of a real, flesh and blood human. But somehow, when I gazed at her smiling, shy face in our school chapel, my hands ached to show her my beauty. Yes, it was arrogance and fear. I didn't want to lose her, but I felt she'd deserve someone like me. So divine was her parted mouth, the way she let me hold her shoulders as I kissed her lips and wrestled her tongue with my artificial one. Her hands were always clasped tightly together. Whether it was in desperate prayer for forgiveness... or whether savouring my moist taste, I don't know.

At first, I thought she was an innocent child. But slowly, as we spent more and more time together, I realized too late that I had fallen into her thrall. She blamed herself for my pain, but she wasn't the one who was funny in the head. It was me. Why else could she ask to see me naked, in that very chapel we met? And why else could I, maddened with love as I was, take off my clothes at a simple command from her?

"You know, there's a certain power in seeing someone naked. You must feel like God looking down at Adam and Eve, who, once so in love with each other, turned their fingers against their soul mate and blamed the other for their shame and nakedness," I complained quietly, observing Shiori as she gazed almost boredly at my nipples. My uniform lay in a heap on the floor, but Shiori was covered and protected in that attire of dark green. My optical sensors burned at the unfairness. My nerve filaments were sizzling in helpless frustration, slight humiliation, and overpowering desire.

"Does this satisfy you, human? To subjugate an android and reduce her to slavery?" I lashed out with that question like a horse's whip, trying to goad her into saying something that would betray her more sinister intentions. Yes! That was it. She was using me. Using me as her toygirl until graduation, until she left Lillian to become a bitch for God.

If I couldn't get her to stay, I had thought hatefully then, I'd show her what a real bitch looked like!

But I was in for such disappointment - oh, such disappointment. Even as I ravaged her with unkind words meant to prompt guilt and self-loathing, her eyes did not budge. Her expressionless face didn't move a jot. She merely walked slowly towards me, raising a thin hand.

"Oh, Sei-sama. So mired in sin, crazed with lust for me, investing all your happiness into a girl who can only love God." Shiori's eyes shone with unshed tears. "You are a foolish android. Surely you should be above the whims and physical wants of human beings. Perhaps that simply means you're a bigger fool than even me."

Her words sounded so triumphant, even as she apologized that she couldn't stay with me. It was as if she relished the pain we were both suffering, as evidence that we were each other's first loves.

To this day I still don't know why I took off my clothes for her, getting her to see me in all my vulnerability. But my database still throbs over her departure. Youko knows. But as long as I don't see Kubo Shiori, I'll be fine. I can devote my attention just to Youko, Shimako, and Yumi-chan, and I won't lose the cool edge I'm so adored for.

As if life is that easy.

* * *

Sei never believed this day would come. But it did, and she was completely unprepared for it.

"Why are you here?" she asked the nun standing before her outside the school gates. Her fists were clenched. Her throat felt dry and parched, even though she didn't have a voicebox or any muscles in her neck. All she knew was that she was probably breaking down.

It was too soon. This reunion was too much.

"I'm teaching some substitute courses this term," said the Sister quietly. It was only ten o'clock, and the morning sun shone generously on her almost sacred face. "On Mondays and Wednesdays. It helps to keep some money in my pocket. It's not easy to survive on convent donations, after all. And they accepted my application fairly readily, though I am but a failed alumnus."

Dear God, Shiori looked beautiful in a Sister's black robes. Even though her long black hair was hidden away by the shroud of chastity - proof of her marriage to Christ - her pious eyes hadn't changed in the slightest. "It would have been better if we didn't run into each other," said the shocked Sei quietly, her smile strained. "But... it's as if time has stopped. You haven't changed at all." She forced out a laugh. "You've... achieved your dream, haven't you? You've landed an omnipotent sugar daddy."

"Indeed," said the nun. "Although I would contest the expression 'sugar daddy'."

Neither laughed at the other's dark humour. In actual fact, there was nothing to laugh about, nothing to rejoice about this unexpected reunion. It simply was not supposed to happen. They stared at each other, and to Sei's surprise, Shiori took the lead. "Come, my daughter." She walked past Sei, making a point to keep a respectful distance from the woman. "I won't pretend I've forgotten about you, or your eyes, or your warm arms, but perhaps God has brought us together again so we can honestly, genuinely come to terms with each other. There was an unspoken agreement between us not to seek each other out again, but perhaps that was a mistake. I believe the Lord has made that clear enough." The nun turned around suddenly, her sweet, soft lips parting to say something. She visibly braced herself.

Sei almost didn't want to listen. "It feels weird, you calling me your daughter," muttered the cyborg. "Can you stop that? Please, Shiori - "

"You were the rock star of the school. You were the rock star of my life. I was but a moon, and you a constellation," burst out Shiori passionately. "I'm sorry, my beloved. For all the hurt I inflicted on you. For fleeing from you at the last minute, when we promised we'd run away together. For leaving you with nothing but a letter full of hypocrisy, fear, self-pity, and self-loathing. For never having the maturity to heal the wounds between us except by staying away from you." Shiori smiled. "I'm sorry. It's time to come to terms with our mutual cowardice and fear. We failed ourselves that night we parted without a word. Let's make it right."

Sei smiled, but her lips were quivering. And before she knew it, her optical sensors began to leak. She felt her fuses fizzle from the damage, and she staggered back, completely unprepared. Shiori looked up at the cyborg in amazement. "Sei-sama... Sei-sama!" she breathed. "Impossible! You... you're crying! _How_?"

"Strange," stuttered Sei in stupefied amazement. She wiped away that slow trickle of tears. "Youko... she never installed any fluid generators inside me. Why... why can I cry? And more importantly... you're the one who left me with nothing except that letter, dummy."

Shiori almost looked proud. Yes, despite all her goodness and genuine charity, she was ignorant of her own cruelty, of the beautiful pain she could cause others. Sei knew that was her great shortcoming. Even now, as a chaste young sister, she could make a robotic heart and... soul? ... ache. "No matter what you think of me, no matter what you think of Maria-sama, you were my first love. My first human love, even before Youko." Sei stared at the ground, her optics registering nothing. Her supercomputer felt laggy with emotion. "I hate to say it, but that is the truth."

She clutched her head as a sudden, heavy torpor began to overtake her. Shiori's eyes were mesmerizing, perhaps even more so after just one year. What was happening to her? Was she literally bewitched by this girl? She winced, teetering on her school shoes. One by one, she felt her processors shutting down, and she had already collapsed to the ground by the time she realized she was falling into an unconscious stupor.

"Uuughh..." she moaned painfully, before she felt the last drives in her database switching off. She blacked out, her world fading into darkness like the interval of a film. The last thing she groaned out was a garbled, "What's... happening to me?"

"Sei-sama! Sei-sama!" cried Shiori, running to her collapsed form and cradling her motionless body gently despite her rising, choking panic. Dear God, what had happened? She looked around, but everyone was in class right now. _She_ was supposed to have reported to the classroom too. But now...

"Someone! Anyone! _Help_!"

* * *

_Youko's research bunker. Several stories below the main Lillian building_

Youko tenderly placed Sei's still head on the pillow. She looked at her defunct optic sensors, covered by limp rubber eyelids. Standing with Rosa Chinensis, beside the lifeless android's bedside, was a sniffling Shiori. The nun clutched Sei's limp hand and wrist, crying softly but inconsolably. Youko wanted to join her wholeheartedly, but she had a project to fix. That was her privilege and her burden - when everyone around her was losing their heads, she had to keep hers. That was what everyone expected of Rosa Chinensis, the grande soeur of Sachiko-sama. "She's purposely shut herself down," she whispered, running a hand along Sei's motionless chest. "Just like a computer overloaded with corrupted information. A self-defence mechanism to protect the mainframe against a virus."

Shiori stared at Youko. "She went into lockdown just because she saw me?"

"I'd love to say that this was your fault, Shiori-san," declared Youko, in a remarkable and rare display of bluntness. Shiori visibly recoiled from the verbal lashing, but Youko kept her jealous temper in check, to her credit. "But Sei also made mistakes in her courtship with you. You two drove headlong into the abyss of self-destruction, lacking the courage to face up to the impossibility of your affection. You did the right thing when you deserted Sei, on that painful night last year. But the way you did it was so ham-fisted, so clumsy, so... _graceless_... that I'm surprised you're showing up here in a holy woman's uniform."

Shiori's expression was a mixture of shock and rarely displayed offence. She had never even known Youko was capable of this kind of severity. But she could only look on helplessly, relying completely on Youko's expertise to save the robot whom both nun and scientist shared.

She clenched her fist. "This is the extent of her sorrow?" she gritted. "Why couldn't I tell that? Have I failed her again? Sei-sama!" she cried, her distressed call directed at the comatose cyborg. Sei didn't respond at all, her lips still and her eyelids refusing to reveal her optic sensors. "Why have you kept this inside you? Answer me!"

"Because you two stopped contacting each other, idiot." Youko looked sharply at Shiori, who flinched almost instinctively. "We musn't tell Shimako-chan or Yumi-chan about this. They'd be crushed. The most important thing is to remove Sei's self-built firewall. I'm not an expert hacker, but the firewall is almost certain to grow out of control and become a malignant virus that will eat away at all the other software I've installed into her cerebral computer." She turned away from the beleaguered nun and sat down on the office chair before her desk, staring at the bright light of her wired laptop.

"Drastic events call for drastic measures," muttered the Red Rose. "I owe it to Sei to protect her from herself."

"Are you going to erase her memories of me?" blurted Shiori.

"Excuse me?" demanded Youko. "Do you think that low of me?"

Shiori's terrified silence seemed to concede that she had made a big error in judgement.

Youko closed her eyes bitterly. "I'm not surprised. You were Sei's first and most tragic love. It seems you and her assumed that you'd never meet again. But here you are. Sei wouldn't let anyone know, but she had prepared herself to never look upon your face, or register your voice again. Yet here you are, just in time to spoil everything again." She shrugged. "It doesn't matter. The past can move us to action, but nothing else. And now, we need to do something about the defences Sei has built into her programming, which she mistakenly hoped would protect her from the hurt she experienced with you." Youko reached into her cabinet and lifted out a pair of headphones - at least, Shiori thought they were headphones, but she quickly saw that the ends of the wires were not speakers - they were nodes.

"I ask for your patience," said Youko coolly, affixing the nodes to the sides of her temples.

"Youko-sama!" whispered Shiori. "Are those - ?"

"Don't concern yourself with the technicalities, Sister," said Youko, as her whining laptop automatically opened the uplink programme to Sei's supercomputer. "I have a cyborg's consciousness to save."

_I have a darling to comfort_, she thought to herself, as she pressed the _enter_ button on her computer. The nodes began to transfer her own brain signals to Sei's programme files, and Youko braced herself, preparing to find the cyborg's consciousness inside her jammed firewall.

_You silly girl. This is own your doing, isn't it? You always shut yourself away when the going got tough. Well, no matter. I'm coming for you_.

Shiori, Sei's still body, and all the material world sank into nothingness, and Youko found herself propelled into the ethereal universe of Sei's computer. "Here goes," she muttered, as the world around her transformed from the dark, gargantuan bunker of the research facility into a matrix of intertwining lights and glimmering digital tendrils.

Floating freely, like in water or in space, inside an ethereal chamber of echoing, anonymous voices, she knew was within Sei's head, although she was still dressed in her green school uniform and white labcoat.

"Let's go," whispered Youko, raising her hand.

It was time to run a trial on her greatest invention - a coded contingency programme she had deployed for this critical moment... to protect Sei's most intimate world from collapsing into an absent server.

* * *

"Let's go," growled Youko in concentration, as she mentally recited the commands for her neuro-programme to activate.

_Gigantea shutdown. Emergency Chinensis input._

Within this white world of writhing lights and digital vines, Youko's body suddenly felt a blast of cool wind chill her body as her school uniform evaporated as one into thin air, leaving her stark naked. Barely a heartbeat had passed when, from her hands, red plates of titanium began to encase her fingers, then her palms and hands, before moving all the way up her arms and around her shoulders. The little pieces of crimson coalesced themselves around her thin legs, around her hips and waist, before finishing with a metallic torso. Soon her grim face was covered too, along with her cropped hair, in a slim, diamond-shaped helmet with a single horizontal slit that provided her with a digital screen for sight and navigation. The slim, fitting, nanotech suit was magnificent in its complete red, as naturally worn as the school uniform Youko was used to. Her fleshly form had completely disappeared, encased in the quantum exoskeleton she had developed to enter Rosa Gigantea's matrix.

She had devoted all her exhaustive energy and intelligence for her sake alone. Sei's wellbeing was what drove her scientific, pioneering brilliance.

"Identity confirmed. Welcome, Red Rose."

"Chinensis Interface," commanded Youko aloud to her exoskeleton, "search model Gigantea zero-zero-zero-one in danger zone. Direct all memory to recovering lost data."

"Understood, Rosa Chinensis."

She clenched her gauntleted fists lightly, and her boots' thrusters ignited in cosmic fire, hurling her roaring armour through the tunnel of white light. Almost immediately, white tendrils reached up from the tunnel's bottom ahead of her and shot at her face.

"Gigantea vines," growled Youko, "the automatic defences of the White Rose." She pointed her forefinger at them, and a blast of red light shot from its metal tip, cutting through the vines and sending them collapsing. More tendrils shot down from above behind her. The Chinensis Interface fought back by thrusting out its limbs, and a spherical forcefield exploded from her, engulfing the vines and consuming them in crimson iridescence. Youko's eyes narrowed within her helmet as white walls of light now emerged, erecting themselves to block her way. She raised her arms. "Chinensis Interface!" she cried, spinning in mid-flight to confuse the lockdown tendrils. "Begin hacking sequence!"

"Yes, Youko-sama."

One angry, determined slap with her hand's armour was enough to shatter the wall, and she flew on in its crumbling wake. Another strike, and the next wall collapsed too. "Sei!" cried Youko. "You're a cyborg, not a computer code! Your human heart is stronger than your wildest fantasies. Shiori-san never meant to cause a meltdown like this. Open yourself up to us. No one will hurt you! There's no need to use your antivirus."

White vines shot up from below, catching up with Youko's thrusters and entwining themselves around her titanium boots. Her suit of armour jerked back, and she flailed helplessly.

"Let me in!" screamed Youko, struggling to free herself. "Am I not worthy?" She pointed down at her feet, and red light erupted again, wiping the vines clean into oblivion. She flew on, heart pounding inside the Chinensis Interface. "You're lovable. You're worthwhile. You're wanted. The world does not hate you." A flash of light momentarily blinded her visor's screen, but soon it was gone, and she was at a pearly door. She looked around, and the tunnel had changed imperceptibly into a vast spherical dome. The door was the only distinguishing feature in the faceless digital landscape. But she was certain it was locked, because Sei had done this to herself, if only as a defensive reaction to Shiori's presence.

Youko lowered her armoured head. "Sei... I know it must have been a shock to see Shiori-san today. But she's not here. It's just me. You have nothing to be afraid of."

After several moments of ambient silence, the door clicked and reluctantly slid open.

* * *

Complete, tranquil silence. Infinite, shimmering white.

Youko turned down her thrusters, and she slowly hovered into the room past the sliding door. It closed on her the moment she was inside. It was a small room, a contrast to the massive vault outside and the long tunnel Youko had fought her way through. Inside stood Sei in her naked glory, her lonely eyes meeting Youko's armoured mask.

"You're beautiful," were the first words the Red Rose said to the naked girl. "You were always beautiful, and you will always be beautiful, no matter what form you take. As long as you're you, you hold my heart in your hands."

Sei lowered her gaze. She shuffled her bare feet in the white room. For some reason, she felt ashamed, covering her breasts and groins with her hands.

"Thank you," she muttered. She looked at her lover and friend within the magnificent Chinensis Interface. "When I was talking to Shiori, I actually felt lubricants coming out of my optics. My cameras are fried now," she said.

"You can cry? That _is_ astonishing and warrants further research," replied Youko. "But leaving that aside, it's easy to fix your eyes. I mean, look what I'm wearing. Pretty amazing, isn't it? I have to be, if I'm going to look after you."

"I don't know what I'll say to Shiori if you wake me up," whispered Sei.

"I'll be there. It'll be the three of us. We'll have a long girls' talk, and I'll stay by your side as you and Shiori make peace - proper peace, not like that night when you collapsed in your onee-sama's arms and Shiori dropped off the face of the earth. It'll be different this time. And I promise you, you _will_ be able to love Shiori again, as a person with her own desires and destiny. You'll be able to look at her without feeling the urge to cry."

Youko extended an armoured hand. "Let's go, Sei," she said softly. "You shouldn't be locked up in your own database here, protecting yourself from God knows what. If it's grief you're trying to shield yourself from, you're making a mistake. Don't you want to be more human than machine?"

Sei's optics - no, her eyes - brimmed with tears of gratitude. "Yeah. Yeah, I do," she confessed, visibly trembling. She hugged herself. "But I'm grateful I've lived like this. I'm glad you're the one taking care of me. I don't think I could have... persisted... without you."

Youko's heart melted. "Come on," she said, turning off her thrusters. It was over, she thought in relief. Sei had let Youko's love in. She walked to the crying White Rose and embraced her. "Together, we are invincible," whispered Youko through her helmet.

"Yeah." Sei began to laugh through her tears. Her naked arms clutched Youko harder.

"Yeah!"

* * *

_Lillian research bunker_

Sei's optical sensors suddenly buzzed with light again. Her eyelids fluttered and convulsed, and her body twitched. She gasped with life, and then gasped again as Shiori embraced her in tears. She glanced around the room, and she realized everything. The bed she lay on. Shiori's relieved hug. And...

She gently cradled Shiori as she rose from her prone position, sitting up to look at her rescuer.

Across from them, Youko heaved in her chair, screaming sharply as she grabbed her nodes and ripped them from her temples. She heaved, looking as if she might vomit. But she didn't, and she turned around, sweat streaming down her unusually unkempt face. "Sei!" she cried. "Are you - "

Sei's calm expression took the scientist by surprise. "Hey," she piped up.

"Oh," said Youko, caught off-guard. But then she allowed a small smile. "I programmed your supercomputer. It'd be a disaster if I couldn't navigate through it."

Sei nodded silently, clutching the weeping nun in her arms tighter.

"You're a handful, you know that?"

Sei looked at Youko sombrely. "I'm sorry for pulling this drama on you two. It wasn't fair."

Youko's eyes glimmered forgivingly. Somehow, there wasn't much to say, because she had said everything back in the white chamber. She had told Sei all she needed to know. That she was wanted and loved. She was necessary. And she needed to talk properly to the Sister she pined for.

Sei glanced down at Shiori. Shiori was still hiccuping through her tears. "I'm horrible," she whispered. "I'm an ignorant girl who has no idea about the damage she caused... and still cause. What... what would have happened if Youko-sama didn't work her wonders?"

"Well, it didn't happen, did it?" Sei smiled as the Red Rose walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. "Shiori, you were my first love. That means something. It should mean more. It means we need to make peace. And maybe exchange emails like normal people. Let's not mask our pain by running away from each other.

"Let's talk, and start over."

* * *

**Filament 5: Aching Love. Fukuzawa Yumi finds warmth in an android's embrace, cosier than any human's hug. **


	5. Aching Cogs

**Filament 5**

**Aching Cogs**

* * *

Hi there! Sorry for my sudden lack of updates. I've been going through a hectic albeit happy transition in my working life, but I've also spent a lot of time devouring shoujo-ai and yuri manga. I've been trying to discover how these manga authors are able to create a notably melancholy and heart-tugging "mood", "atmosphere" or "ambience" that makes one sit back and sigh even after one's done reading the last manga panel. I've been trying to think of how such an aesthetic approach can be applied to Marimite fanfics - I tried to do something of the sort with a oneshot about Shimako and Noriko in their old age.

I suspect I won't be too successful. Being able to create a mood or ambience isn't some "target" that you can meet and quantify. It's about the sense of wonder and appreciation you nurture within yourself for yuri and how you want to express that appreciation. It's about that bittersweet feeling you have after putting down a painful but lovely series or oneshot, but you wouldn't replace that bittersweet appreciation for anything in the world.

Thanks for having a look at the fifth and final filament of my small series. I think this fanfic has more or less done what it set out to do - to make Sei the central focus of the story but also to create a really relaxed, pensive atmosphere and ambience for a science fiction setting that involves more emotion than high tech. It's set quite a different pace from anything else I've done, but I don't regret trying this out. Thank you so much for having a look at the five characters who have made the biggest difference in Sei's unique life.

Happy summer, and may girls' love rule forever.

* * *

Sometimes, you can tell the personality of a person by listening to them play an instrument. Yumi loved watching Sachiko play the grand piano, the keys being guided by her fingers. They spoke volumes about what Sachiko was like as a person and what she treasured: elegance, a clear statement of distance and superiority, a taste for the unattainable.

But Sei... well, that was an entirely different matter.

It was after school, and the two were lounging about, with no club activities or any duties the futuristic Yamayurikai needed them to do. "Can I serenade you with a song?" invited the cyborg, strumming the strings of the acoustic guitar casually (still a popular instrument in this distant future). She winked at the blushing girl as the two sat together on the stairs that led up to the chapel behind them. "I can play anything. I just need to download the sound file in my head, learn it, and I'll know how to sing it for ya."

"You can teach me, so I can play a song for onee-sama," replied Yumi, giggling.

"Ouch, you just rejected me big time." Sei looked up into the sky, her fingers playing an aimless, nameless, but pleasant and lilting melody. "You're getting harder to tease each day, Yumi-chan. With each week you grow further, blossom further, into a smart woman with a good head on your shoulders."

Yumi lowered her gaze. "I have to. I have to do my best, if I'm going to be strong in your absence."

Sei stared at Yumi. The lighthearted mood seemed to have shifted to something... more serious. "You're graduating with Rosa Chinensis, aren't you?" whispered the human despondently, fingering her pigtails. She stared down at the concrete. "I can't imagine life here in this school without you. It won't be the same."

Rosa Gigantea smiled. "Just because it's going to be different doesn't mean it's going to be worse." Stopping her playing, she set down the guitar and shuffled closer to Yumi, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder. "You'll be the Red Rose's bouton. You'll meet new girls. Enjoy new privileges and responsibilities. You'll forget about me in no time."

"You have no idea," disagreed Yumi almost angrily, shaking her head. "You have no idea... how brightly you shine in our hearts. In my heart." She looked away. "I adore you, Rosa Gigantea, and I mean that in a more... basic way. You just... make a difference in my life. I can't ignore that."

"Well, aren't you sweet."

Yumi didn't look convinced. Sei felt as if she had suffered some kind of defeat (but what defeat?), and she leaned into Yumi's hair, nuzzling down her neck and aiming for a direct peck on her collarbone. She brushed her lips playfully along Yumi's skin, and she heard it - that forcibly restrained mew, that resigned mew that no longer could or wanted to resist. Yumi's eyes were shut tight, her hand pressing against Sei's arm. "That tickles," she rebuked with a whisper. She didn't let go of the cyborg. "I let you have that one, because you probably think my immature, worrying self deserved it."

Slowly, surreptitiously, Sei lifted her nose to Yumi's side bangs, aiming to kiss her red, blushing ear.

But Yumi stopped her with a single finger pressing against Sei's surprised mouth.

"I said one," said Yumi quietly, and her expression was so vulnerable, so reproachful, so full of agony and yearning, that even Sei fell silent with no riposte to offer.

* * *

She found Yumi in the greenhouse today, crouched amongst the white, yellow, red, and pink roses. "Yo, Yumi-chan!" she called, waving her hand. "You wanted to talk?"

Silence.

Wearing a long black coat over her school uniform, Sei sauntered over, passing by the plant pots and a few overgrown ferns. "Yuuuuuumiiiii."

Yumi still didn't respond, her head down, her arms wrapped around her knees.

Sei cocked her head. "Seriously. What's up, Yumi-chan. You can tell me anything."

Yumi turned her head, looking up at her. Her eyes were glimmering, and Sei at once knew it wasn't a joke. "Come on. Let's get you on your pretty little feet," she suggested, and bending down, gently scooped Yumi into her steady arms. "You're shaking, kinda," she whispered in surprise and concern, and Yumi nodded dumbly as she let Sei lift her back up to face her.

"This isn't like you, Yumi-chan. Why are you being such an angsty emo? It doesn't suit you. You might as well dress up in black. Well," added Sei lightheartedly, "you'd actually look pretty cute in a punk getup, I reckon. But keep the pigtails. They make you stand out."

Yumi's face flickered with a smile, but it was soon gone as she buried her face in Sei's chest. "I'm scared, and incompetent, Rosa Gigantea. Please help me. Please, give me some advice. What should I do?" Yumi began to press her knuckles against her clenched eyelids. "This morning, I saw onee-sama looking listlessly at her piano. In her hand was a photo from Tsutako-san of her and Rosa Chinensis."

"Youko," murmured Sei in acknowledgement. Ah, yes. As a senior science student in the school, surely Youko was finding it hard to part from the Yamayurikai too.

"Yes. And if onee-sama can't come to terms with it, you can't blame me for not being able to do the same with you," cried Yumi, her voice breaking.

Sei clasped the back of Yumi's head with a gentle but firm hand, running her fingers through the dark brown hair. "You have Shimako and Yoshino-chan with you. And as long as you're there, Sachiko will be fine." Before she knew it, Sei found that she was kissing Yumi's forehead tenderly and repeatedly. She didn't stop because she didn't want to, and more importantly because Yumi said nothing about it. And so Yumi's forehead became nice and pink, sore from the dozen kisses from the gentle cyborg.

The younger student looked up at the compassionate android. "Thank you," she whispered. "I'll be a good girl. I'll deal with it, I'll take it on the chin. I'll try to be as strong as you are, and make you and onee-sama proud."

"I don't know if I'm as strong as you think, but I'll take the compliment," chuckled Sei.

Yumi shuffled her feet shyly as they basked in each other's presence for several silent moments.

"You shouldn't treat girls so nicely if you're not serious about them. It's inconsiderate, and can really hurt someone," she reproached suddenly.

"Oh, so are you saying I have a chance?" laughed Sei. Her hands moved down Yumi's petite body, only to squeeze Yumi's waist and elicit a soft "Oh!" from her.

"This isn't a joke," said Yumi severely, after she recovered from the pleasure.

"Well, you know better than anyone - including me - who you love most," shrugged Sei, and this time she wasn't bullshitting.

She suddenly felt herself being nudged gently away. She tried to resist at first, but after Yumi gave an insistent push, she let go of the first-year and backed off. "Yumi-chan?" She blinked, a bit bewildered about it all. Why was Yumi so... moody today?

"If... if I didn't know better, or have onee-sama to anchor my heart..." Yumi blushed both in reluctant affection and irritation.

"I'd be head-over-heels for you!" she burst out, before whipping around and making a run for it, her school shoes hitting the ground in panic as she fled from Sei's presence.

"Yumi-chan, wait!" cried a panicked Sei. For a moment or two she had the wild thought to stay put, to stay back and wait to see what would happen. That was usually her style. It had always been her preference, even with someone as intimate as her guardian and a caretaker, Youko. Shimako? Well, their relationship was quirky so it didn't count. Shizuka? They weren't that close emotionally, they only shared a primal, raw attraction that wasn't really about anything as complex as the thoughts running through Sei's circuits.

But with Yumi, with this junior student who had changed the Yamayurikai for the better...

She felt she could be safe in letting her own insecurities show, too.

Her feet broke into a sprint. Her legs were longer, so she managed to reach the struggling Yumi and pull her wrist. "Ah!" cried Yumi, losing balance and finding herself tumbling into Sei's urgent arms.

"Please wait. Please." For the first time, Sei's begging voice was deadly serious, without any of the wryness or irony that characterized her signature smooth talking. "Don't leave me. Not after what you just did. I'll apologize, I swear. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been so naughty."

Yumi began to cry. "Rosa Gigantea... I'm so glad you're going to Lillian College. It's as if even our distance from each other makes my heart ache."

"Call me Sei," proposed the other softly.

"No! I won't be so intimate with you," cried Yumi, flushing, "or something horrible might happen!"

"A melting heart never hurt anyone, right?" argued Sei, trying to defuse the tension that had suddenly seemed to bring them hotly together.

"Yes! Yes it did! That's the whole point. I can only call you Sei-sama!" Yumi looked up at the anxious android. "That's... that's as far as I can go. I cannot be more intimate with you than I already am. Any more and I really will..."

Unable to resist teasing Yumi a bit more, Sei suddenly nibbled on the other's collarbone, drawing forth an agonized squeal, a tortured moan of pleasure. "Yumi-chan."

"Sei-sama!" cried Yumi, her hands clutching onto Sei's forearms, only able to hold on passionately.

"You're adorable."

"My knees..." Yumi buckled, and she sighed in warning. Ever on the mark, Sei caught the slumping girl, burying her face on her crown, ruffling her mouth through the brown hair. She chuckled as she dragged Yumi back up. "Sorry," she whispered. "Went a bit too far there, I admit. You're just too cute."

"Thank you," giggled Yumi quietly. "Rosa Gigantea, don't ever leave us."

"No one said I was going anywhere." Sei closed her optical sensors as the human girl hugged her tightly, and suddenly, the prospect of graduation didn't seem special at all. Because she was determined to always hang around these girls, to annoy Sachiko, to bug Yoshino and Rei, to tease Yumi. Why would she want to be anywhere else?

Yes, her cogs ached with nostalgia for these precious halcyon, Lillian days. And it was during these moments that she wanted to throw herself into the arms of the girls she loved.

It was almost Christmas, and on Christmas Eve Youko was going to give her first time to the cyborg, as they had promised. But before that special, database-blowing night, there was one final loose end to tie up.

* * *

It is always awkward being with the girl who, inadvertently as she may have been, pretty much caused you to lose most of your body and brains to a truck. Still, since it was Rosa Foetida, it wasn't too long after the accident that she decided it wasn't completely her fault. After all, it was toddler Sei who had gotten anties in her panties after a completely innocent question. It was Sei who had initiated aggression by punching Eriko in the face, and the rest was simply an unfortunate accident. Eriko could recall crying in anxiety and self-reproach on many nights after Sei's fateful collision with the truck, though she'd never tell Sei to her face about that. Even after all these years, when it was clear that Youko had become closer to Sei thanks to their scientist-android relationship.

"Fancy running into you. _Gokigenyou_," said Eriko coolly, her hands clutching her black leather bag.

"_Gokigenyou_," reciprocated Sei, scratching her head.

"I wonder when you'll stop monopolizing Youko so she can actually get some work done with her Yamayurikai duties."

"I help out plenty," said Sei gruffly.

"Whatever you say," dismissed Eriko with a disapproving wave of her hand.

There was an awkward silence between them, before Eriko looked up at the morning sky.

"It's hard talking to me, isn't it? Even though we're about to graduate." She smiled. "All we have is our rivalry, and the shadow of what I did to you. In many ways, Youko is more mature than the two of us put together."

Sei stared at Eriko with an almost cool gaze. "I'll be frank with you, _dekochin_. I don't cling to the past anymore. I learnt that the hard way with Shiori, but for some reason it's always been easier with you. I have Shimako, Yumi, and Youko to thank for that. They taught me so much, and I'm glad to have learned from them."

Eriko looked at Sei in surprise. She adjusted her headband. "Since when were you the one to go all philosophical?"

"Not philosophical, baby. Just realistic. I've got strong metallic shoulders. I can take anything you throw at me on the chin." Sei walked past Eriko, giving her shoulder a light slap with her hand. She didn't look back. "What you did that day changed my life forever. I still can't say it was for the better. But even if it was for the worse, I already forgave you long ago."

Eriko looked stunned. Her eyes, usually so bored, were wide with amazement. Never was Sei so honest with something so difficult.

Had she been telling the truth about having changed?

"Hey, where are you going?" she called, turning to look at Sei's back.

Sei raised an arm, waving. "I'm getting laid."

The pensive mood between the two girls shattered. Eriko looked thoroughly bewildered by the totally random declaration.

"_Sei, you silly woman... hm. Or should I say android_...?"

* * *

It was midnight in the greenhouse. Amidst the night-kissed flowers sat Sei, ever the free spirit of Lillian Academy, strumming the strings of the instrument Yumi admired so much. Her face was reflective, betraying a hint of self-doubt and uncertainty as she plucked at the guitar. What would happen to Yumi when she graduated? That question had hung heavily on her supercomputer for some time now. Yumi never made it a secret that she depended on Sei for so much: comfort, advice, refuge. But Sei honestly, sincerely believed that she'd be fine without her. In fact, perhaps it was a good time to leave the Yamayurikai with Youko and Eriko.

"Is it me she looks up to?" she murmured to herself. "Or a mirage that my shadow makes?"

The glass door to the greenhouse opened, and in walked - well, speak of the devil. "Rosa Gigantea," greeted Yumi, still in her school uniform.

Sei stopped playing and set aside the guitar. She stood up, optic sensors glimmering like twin moons.

"Couldn't resist, could you?"

"Consider this a formal goodbye. But come back to us, again and again. Promise me," demanded Yumi quietly.

"Of course, my Chinensis princess."

"I won't tell Youko-sama," whispered Yumi, stepping closer.

"And I won't tell Sachiko," assured Sei quietly.

Their loving kiss was one of a kind. They would never do it another time, not because they were scared, but simply because such a kiss was unique. It was a clandestine kiss, an acknowledgement of their complex and strange feelings for each other. In a way, it was even more complex than Yumi's love for Sachiko, or the bond between Youko and Sei.

They would never kiss again, nor speak of this one. This secret, special kiss would never be brought back up, making it all the more precious.

* * *

On a lounge desk in the futuristic Yamayurikai's lounge stand several photo frames. The first is of the three Roses, their arms linked together in ladylike solidarity, no matter what the difficulties that may have passed between them before. The second is of Yumi and Sachiko, their hands clasping tightly as soeurs that would only part at death.

And the third...

The third is of Sei and Yumi, the cyborg's arms wrapped protectively around the laughing junior, their happy, shining eyes begging the world to stop in time, to hold this moment of their encounter and meeting forever, because there was nothing more special than to be held by Sei.

This was the year 2400, Anno Domini.

Here, within the dormitories of the pioneering Lillian Academy, a scientist and her android slept together in the scientist's bed, having guided each other through their first game of passion. This was the year that Sei went for it. This was the time she made peace with her past, and strode forth into the future she wanted to create for herself. This was her cyborg Christmas, and the end of her story. What comes after... well, it would have to wait for another day. We have plenty of time, and she has plenty of time.

This android's name is Gigantea-0001.

Her story began with a tragedy, with the loss of her human body. It was reborn through metal plating and computer filaments. And it was reborn one more time through her lives with five very special girls.

Shiori.

Shimako.

Yumi.

Shizuka.

Youko.

At peace with herself. At peace with the world.

A white rose, just doing what it does best: blooming.

* * *

**- QUANTUM LILY -**


End file.
